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in  tfje  Citp  of  i^eto  §orfe    ^^ 

College  of  ^bP^iciane:  anb  ^urseons: 


V 


3Ref  erence  i^ifararp 


THE   SANITARY  EVOLUTION 
OF  LONDON 


THE 

SANITARY    EVOLUTION 
OF    LONDON 


HENRY  JEPHSON,    L.C.C. 

AUTHOR  OF 
"  THE  PLATFORM  :  ITS  RISE  AND  PROGRESS  " 


"  The  discovery  of  the  laws  of  public  health,  the  determination  of 
the  conditions  of  cleanliness,  manners,  water  supply,  food,  exercise, 
isolation,  medicine,  most  favourable  to  life  in  one  city,  in  one 
country,  is  a  boon  to  every  city,  to  every  country,  for  all  can 
profit  by  the  experience  of  one." 

G.  Graham,  Registrar-General,  1871. 


A.    WESSELS    COMPANY 

PUBLISHERS 

BROOKLYN,    N.  Y. 

MCMVII 


VjLoa  x-^s.  "^  H^tAv<tH^<t 


DEDICATED 
TO 

THE  LONDON  COUNTY  COUNCIL 

BY  ONE   OF  ITS  MEMBERS 
THE   AUTHOR 


4,  Cornwall  Gardens, 
S.W. 


Digitized  by  tine  Internet  Arciiive 

in  2010  witii  funding  from 

Open  Knowledge  Commons 


http://www.archive.org/details/sanitaryevolutioOOjeph 


CONTENTS 


MAP  .  .  .  .  .  .   Facing  page  1 


PAGE 

Ohaptek  I        .  .  .  .  .  .  .1 


Chaptee  II  (1855-1860)   .  .           .           .           .          82 

Chaptee  III  (1861-1870)  .            .           .           .           .155 

Chaptee  IV  (1871-1880)  .           .            .           .221 

Chaptee  V  (1881-1890) 288 

Chaptee  VI  (1891-1901)  .           .           .           .349 

Chaptee  VII  (1901-1906) 401 

INDEX 435 


SKETCH    MAP    OF    LOCAL    DISTRICTS    IN    LONDON. 


iv-:^ 


,PADoiNOToN\  \s  3V..5i^'^^^Try^  ^ 


OLD  Town  \rurLfli\j 


GREENWICH  DISTRICT 


)CAMBERWCLL\ 


LAMBETH 


.<f 


,V^ 


.^^ 


^^^/VDs^ 


^'sr/?/cr 


REFERENCE  TO   NAMES  OF  PARISHES  AND  DISTRICTS  NUMBERED  ON  THE  MAP. 

1.  Clerkeawell,  4.    Sti-and.  7.    St.  James',  WeBtminBtor. 

2.  Holboi-n.  5.    St.  Maitin-in-thc-Fields.  8.    "Westniinster. 

3.  St.  Giles'.  6.    MTiitecbh-pal.  9.    St.  Saviour's,  Southwark. 


The  Sanitary  Evolution  of  London 


CHAPTER  I 

The  health  of  the  people  of  a  country  stands  foremost  in 
the  rank  of  national  considerations.  Upon  their  health 
depends  their  physical  strength  and  energy,  upon  it  their 
mental  vigour,  their  individual  happiness,  and,  in  a  great 
degree,  their  moral  character.  Upon  it,  moreover,  depends 
the  productivity  of  their  labour,  and  the  material  prosperity 
and  commercial  success  of  their  country.  Ultimately,  upon 
it  depends  the  very  existence  of  the  nation  and  of  the 
Empire. 

The  United  Kingdom  can  claim  no  exemption  from  this 
general  principle ;  rather,  indeed,  is  it  one  which,  in  the 
present  period  of  our  history,  affects  us  more  vitally  than  it 
has  ever  done  before,  and  in  a  more  crucial  manner  than 
it  does  many  other  nations. 

The  more  imperative  is  it,  therefore,  that  every  effort 
should  be  made  to  raise  the  health  of  our  people  to  the 
highest  attainable  level,  and  to  maintain  it  at  the  loftiest 
possible  standard. 

The  subject  is  so  vast  and  complicated  that  it  is  impossible, 
within  reasonable  limits,  to  treat  more  than  a  portion  of  it 
at  a  time. 

London,  the  great  metropolis,  the  capital  of  the  Empire 
itself,  constitutes,  by  the  number  of  its  inhabitants,  so  large 
a  portion  of  the  United  Kingdom,  that  the  health  of  its 
people  is  a  very  material  factor  in  that  of  the  kingdom. 
It  has  a  population  greater  than  either  Scotland  or  Ireland, 
greater  than  any  of  our  Colonies,  except  Canada  and 
Australasia,  greater  than   that  of   many  foreign  States — 

2  1 


2  THE    SANITARY    EVOLUTION 

"  the  greatest  aggregate  of  human  beings  that  has  ever 
existed  in  the  history  of  the  world  in  the  same  area  of 
space." 

And,  in  a  measure  too,  it  is  typical  of  other  of  our  great 
cities. 

A  narrative  of  the  sanitary  history  and  conditions  of  life 
of  the  people  of  London,  therefore,  would  be  a  material 
contribution  to  the  consideration  of  the  general  subject 
in  its  national  aspect,  whilst  it  cannot  but  be  of  special 
interest  to  those  more  immediately  concerned  in  the 
amelioration  of  the  existing  condition  of  the  masses  of 
the  people  of  the  great  capital. 

Such  a  narrative  is  attempted  in  the  following  pages. 

It  is,  in  the  main,  based  upon  the  experiences,  and 
inferences,  and  conclusions,  of  men  who,  more  than  any 
others,  were  in  a  position  closely  to  observe  the  circum- 
stances in  which  the  people  lived,  their  sanitary  condition, 
and  the  causes  leading  thereto  and  influencing   the  same. 

It  includes  the  principal  measures  from  time  to  time 
passed  by  the  Legislature  to  create  local  governing 
authorities  in  sanitary  matters — the  various  measures 
designed  and  enacted  to  improve  the  condition  of  the 
people — and  the  administration  of  those  measures  by  the 
local   authorities   charged  with  their   administration. 

It  is  a  narrative,  in  fact,  of  the  sanitary — and,  therefore, 
to  a  great  extent  of  the  social — evolution  of  this  great  city. 

It  is  doubtful  how  long  a  time  would  have  elapsed  before 
the  condition  of  the  people  came  into  real  prominence  had 
it  not  been  for  the  oft-recurring  invasions  of  the  country  by 
epidemic  disease  of  the  most  dreaded  and  fatal  forms.  Ever- 
present  diseases,  disastrous  and  devastating  though  they 
were,  did  not  strike  the  imagination  or  appeal  to  the  fears 
of  the  public  as  did  the  sudden  onslaught  of  an  awe- 
inspiring  disease  such  as  cholera. 

An  epidemic  of  that  dreaded  disease  swept  over  London 
in  1832,  and  there  were  over  10,000  cases  and  nearly  5,000 
deaths  in  the  districts  then  considered  as  metropolitan — 
the  population  of  those  districts  being  close  upon  1,500,000. 

For  the  moment,  the  dread  of  it  stimulated  the  people, 


OF    LONDON  3 

and  such  governing  authorities  as  there  were,  to  inspection, 
and  cleansings,  and  purifications,  and  to  plans  for  vigorous 
sanitary  reform ;  but  the  instant  the  cholera  departed 
the  good  resolutions  died  down,  and  the  plans  disappeared 
likewise. 

There  were,  however,  some  persons  upon  whom  this 
visitation  made  more  abiding  impression  ;  and  they,  struck 
by  the  waste  of  human  life,  by  the  frequent  recurrence  of 
epidemics  which  swept  away  thousands  upon  thousands  of 
victims,  and  distressed  by  the  perpetual  prevalence  and 
even  more  deadly  destructiveness  of  various  other  diseases 
among  the  people,  bethought  themselves  of  investigating 
the  actual  existing  facts,  and  the  causes  of  them — so  far 
at  least  as  London,  their  own  city,  was  concerned. 

And  then  slowly  the  curtain  began  to  be  raised  on  the 
appalling  drama  of  human  life  in  London,  and  dimly  to  be 
revealed  the  circumstances  in  which  the  great  masses  of  the 
working  and  labouring  classes  of  the  great  metropolis  lived, 
moved,  and  came  to  the  inevitable  end,  and  the  conditions 
and  surroundings  of  their  existence. 

The  slowness  with  which  England  as  a  nation  awoke  to 
the  idea  that  the  public  health  was  a  matter  of  any  concern 
whatever  is  most  strange  and  remarkable.  It  seems  now  so 
obvious  a  fact  that  one  marvels  that  it  did  not  at  all  times 
secure  for  itself  recognition  and  acknowledgment.  But  men 
and  women  were  growing  up  amidst  the  existing  surround- 
ings, foul  and  unwholesome  though  those  were,  and  some, 
at  least,  were  visibly  living  to  old  age ;  population  was 
increasing  at  an  unprecedented  rate ;  wealth  was  multiplying 
and  accumulating ;  the  nation  was  reaching  greater  heights 
of  power  and  fame.  What,  then,  was  there,  what  could 
there  be  wrong  with  the  existing  state  of  affairs  ? 

Keal  social  evils,  however,  sooner  or  later,  force  them- 
selves into  prominence.  For  long  they  may  be  ignored, 
or  treated  with  indifference  by  the  governing  classes ;  for 
long  they  may  be  endured  by  the  victims  in  suffering  and 
silence ;  but  ultimately  they  compel  recognition,  and  have 
to  be  investigated  and  grappled  with,  and,  if  possible, 
remedied. 


4  THE    SANITARY    EVOLUTION 

The  real  beginning  of  such  investigations  was  not  until 
near  the  close  of  the  fourth  decade  of  the  nineteenth 
century.  Information  then  for  the  first  time  was  collected, 
of  necessity  very  limited  in  extent,  crude  in  form,  and  of 
moderate  accuracy,  but  none  the  less  illuminating  in  its 
character — information  from  which  one  can  piece  together 
in  a  hazy  sort  of  way  a  general  impression  of  the  condition 
of  the  working  and  poorer  classes  in  London  at  that 
period. 

Foremost  among  the  diseases  which  worked  unceasing 
and  deadly  havoc  among  the  people  was  fever.  By  its 
wide  and  constant  prevalence  and  great  fatality,  it  was  the 
first  upon  which  attention  became  fixed.  The  returns 
which  were  collected  as  regarded  it  related  to  twenty 
metropolitan  unions  or  parishes,  and  in  them  only  to  the 
pauper  population,  some  77,000  in  number.  But  they 
showed  that  in  the  single  year  of  1838,  out  of  those  77,000 
persons,  14,000,  or  very  nearly  one-fifth,  had  been  attacked 
by  fever,  and  nearly  1,300  had  died.* 

Being  limited  to  the  technically  pauper  population  this 
information  related  only  to  one  section  of  the  community  ; 
but  it  nevertheless  afforded  the  means  of  forming  a  rough 
estimate  of  the  amount  of  fever  among  the  community  as  a 
whole. 

And  another  fact  also  at  once  became  apparent,  namely, 
that  certain  parts  of  London  were  more  specially  and 
persistently  haunted  or  infested  by  fever  than  others.  In 
"Whitechapel,  Holborn,  Lambeth,  and  numerous  other 
parishes  or  districts,  fever  of  the  very  worst  forms  was 
always  prevalent — "  tjrphus,  and  the  fevers  which  proceed 
from  the  malaria  of  filth."  The  sanitary  condition  of 
those  districts  was  fearful,  every  sanitary  abomination 
being  rampant  therein,  whilst  certain  localities  in  them 
were  so  bad  that  "it  would  be  utterly  impossible  for  any 
description  to  convey  to  the  mind  an  adequate  conception 
of  their  state."  And  most  marvellous  and  deplorable  of  ail 
was  the    fact   that   this  fearful   condition   of  things  was 

*  See  Parliamentary  Papers,  1837-8,  vol.  xxviii.,  and  P.P.  1839,  vol.  xx, 
p.  106,  Dr.  a.  Smith. 


OF    LONDON  5 

allowed,  not  merely  to  continue,  but  to  flourish  without  any 
attempt  being  made  to  remedy,  or  even  to  mitigate,  some  of 
the  inevitable  and  most  disastrous  consequences. 

As  regarded  the  districts  in  which  the  wealthier  classes 
resided,  systematic  efforts  had  been  made  on  a  consider- 
able scale  to  widen  the  streets,  to  remove  obstructions  to 
the  circulation  of  free  currents  of  air,  and  to  improve  the 
drainage — an  acknowledgment  and  appreciation  of  the 
fact  that  these  things  did  deleteriously  affect  people's 
health.  But  nothing  whatever  had  been  attempted  to 
improve  the  condition  of  the  districts  inhabited  by  the 
poor.  Those  districts  were  not  given  a  thought  to, 
though  in  them  annually  thousands  and  tens  of  thousands 
of  victims  suffered  or  died  from  diseases  which  were 
preventable. 

Keports  such  as  these  attracted  some  degree  of  atten- 
tion, and  awakened  a  demand  for  further  information, 
and  in  1840  the  House  of  Commons  appointed  a  Select 
Committee  to  inquire  as  to  the  health,  not  only  of 
London,  but  of  the  large  towns  throughout  the  country. 
Their  report*  enlarged  upon  the  evils  previously  in  part 
portrayed,  and  emphasised  them. 

"  Your  Committee,"  they  wrote,  "  would  pause,  from  the 
sad  statements  they  have  been  obliged  to  make,  to  observe 
that  it  is  painful  to  contemplate  in  the  midst  of  what 
appears  an  opulent,  spirited,  and  flourishing  community, 
such  a  vast  multitude  of  our  poorer  fellow-subjects,  the 
instruments  by  whose  hands  these  riches  were  created, 
condemned  for  no  fault  of  their  own  to  the  evils  so  justly 
complained  of,  and  placed  in  situations  where  it  is  almost 
impracticable  for  them  to  preserve  health  or  decency  of 
deportment,  or  to  keep  themselves  and  their  children  from 
moral  and  physical  contamination.  To  require  them  to  be 
clean,  sober,  cheerful,  contented  under  such  circumstances 
would  be  a  vain  and  unreasonable  expectation.  There  is  no 
building  Act  to  enforce  the  dwellings  of  these  workmen 
being  properly  constructed ;  no  drainage  Act  to  enforce  their 
being  properly  drained ;  no  general  or  local  regulation  to 
1840.   P.P.,  vol.  xi.  p.  13. 


6  THE    SANITARY  EVOLUTION 

enforce  the  commonest  provisions  for  cleanliness  and 
comfort." 

Lurid  as  were  the  details  thus  made  public  of  the  con- 
dition in  which  the  vast  masses  of  the  people  in  London 
were  living,  neither  Parliament  nor  the  Government  took 
any  action  beyond  ordering  successive  inquiries  by  Poor  Law 
Commissioners,  or  Committees  of  the  House  of  Commons, 
or  Eoyal  Commissions. 

Before  one  of  these  Commissions*  the  following  striking 
evidence  was  given — evidence  which  it  might  reasonably 
be  expected  would  have  moved  any  Government  to  immediate 
action : — 

"  Every  day's  experience  convinces  me,"  deposed  the 
witness, t  "that  a  very  large  proportion  of  these  evils  is 
capable  of  being  removed ;  that  if  proper  attention  were 
paid  to  sanitary  measures,  the  mortality  of  these  districts 
would  be  most  materially  diminished,  perhaps  in  some  places 
one-third,  and  in  others  even  a  half. 

"  The  poorer  classes  in  these  neglected  localities  and 
dwellings  are  exposed  to  causes  of  disease  and  death  which 
are  peculiar  to  them  ;  the  operation  of  these  peculiar  causes 
is  steady,  unceasing,  sure ;  and  the  result  is  the  same  as  if 
twenty  or  thirty  thousand  of  these  people  were  annually 
taken  out  of  their  wretched  dwellings  and  put  to  death — 
the  actual  fact  being  that  they  are  allowed  to  remain  in 
them  and  die.  I  am  now  speaking  of  what  silently  but 
surely  takes  place  every  year  in  the  metropolis  alone." 

But  the  Government  took  no  action — beyond  a  Building 
Act  which  did  little  as  regarded  the  housing  of  the  people. 
No  local  bodies  took  action,  and  years  were  to  pass  before 
either  Government  or  Parliament  stirred  in  the  matter. 

In  dealing  historically  with  matters  relating  to  London 
as  a  whole,  it  is  to  be  remembered  that  for  a  long  time  there 
had  been  practically  two  Londons — that  defined  and  de- 
scribed as  the  "  City,"  and  the  rest  of  London — that  which 

*  Commission  for  inquiring  into  the  state  of  large  towns  and  populous 
districts,  1844. 

f  Dr.  Southwood  Smith,  P.P.  1845,  vol.  xviii. 


OF    LONDON  7 

had  no  recognised  boundaries,  no  vestige  of  corporate  exis- 
tence, and  which  can  best  be  described  by  the  word 
"  metropoHs." 

The  "City"  was  virtually  the  centre  of  London — the 
centre  of  its  wealth,  its  industry,  its  geographical  extent — 
a  precisely  defined  area  of  some  720  acres,  or  about  one 
square  mile  in  extent,  and  originally  surrounded  by  walls. 
Its  boundaries  had  been  fixed  at  an  early  period  of  our 
history,  and  had  never  been  extended  or  enlarged.  So 
densely  was  it  covered  with  houses  at  the  beginning  of  the 
nineteenth  century,  and  so  fully  peopled,  that  there  was 
practically  no  room  for  more,  either  of  houses  or  people ; 
and  from  then  to  the  middle  of  that  century  its  population 
was  stationary — being  close  upon  128,000  at  each  of  those 
periods. 

Apajt  altogether  from  poUtical  influences,  there  were  in  the 
"  City  "  powerful  economic  forces  at  work  which  profoundly 
affected  the  condition  and  circumstances  of  the  people,  not 
only  of  the  "  City,"  but  of  London. 

These,  which  were  by  no  means  so  evident  at  one  time, 
became  more  and  more  pronounced  as  time  went  on. 

All  through  the  earlier  part  of  the  nineteenth  century 
England  was  attaining  to  world  pre-eminence  by  her  com- 
merce, her  manufactures,  and  her  wealth.  The  end  of  the 
great  war  with  France  saw  her  with  a  firm  grip  of  all  the 
commercial  markets  of  the  world.  Her  merchants  pushed 
their  trade  in  every  quarter  of  the  globe — her  ships  enjoyed 
almost  a  monopoly  of  the  carrying  trade  of  the  world. 

In  this  progress  to  greatness  London  took  the  foremost 
part,  and  became  the  greatest  port  and  trade  emporium  of 
the  kingdom,  a  great  manufacturing  city,  and  the  financial 
centre  of  the  world's  trade. 

It  was  upon  this  commerce  that  the  prosperity  and  glory 
of  London  were  built :  it  was  by  this  commerce  that  the 
great  bulk  of  the  people  gained  their  livelihood,  and  that  a 
broad  highway  was  opened  to  comfort,  to  opulence,  and 
power.  And  so  the  commercial  spirit — the  spirit  of  acquir- 
ing and  accumulating  wealth — got  ever  greater  possession 
of  London. 


8  THE    SANITARY    EVOLUTION 

That  spirit  had  long  been  a  great  motive  power  in  London  ; 
it  became  more  and  more  so  as  the  century  wore  on,  until 
almost  everything  was  subordinated  to  it. 

That  indisputable  fact  must  constantly  be  borne  in  mind 
as  one  reviews  the  sanitary  and  social  condition  of  the  people 
of  London  at  and  since  that  time.  Other  constant  factors 
there  were,  also  exercising  vast  influence — the  constant 
factors  of  human  passions  and  human  failings — but  wide- 
spread as  were  their  effects,  they  were  second  to  the  all- 
powerful,  the  all-impelling  motive  and  unceasing  desire — 
commercial  prosperity  and  success. 

Synchronous  with  the  rise  in  importance  of  the  port  of 
London,  and  with  its  trade  and  business  assuming  ever 
huger  volume  and  variety,  a  noteworthy  transformation  took 
place. 

The  "  City,"  by  the  very  necessities  of  its  enormous 
business,  became  gradually  more  and  more  a  city  of  offices 
and  marts,  of  warehouses  and  factories,  of  markets  and  ex- 
changes, and  houses  long  used  as  residences  were  pulled 
down,  and  larger  and  loftier  ones  erected  in  their  place 
for  business  purposes. 

In  some  places,  moreover,  ground  was  entirely  cleared  of 
houses  for  the  construction  of  docks,  or  for  the  erection  of 
great  railway  termini. 

How  marked  were  the  effects  of  these  changes  is  evidenced 
by  the  fact  that  from  17,190  inhabited  houses  in  the  "  City  " 
in  1801,  the  number  had  sunk  to  14,575  in  1851. 

The  explanation  was  the  simple  economic  one,  that  land 
in  the  "City"  yielded  a  much  larger  income  when  let  for 
business  than  for  residential  purposes.  Offices  and  ware- 
houses were  absolutely  essential  in  the  "  City"  for  business. 
What  did  it  matter  if  people  had  to  look  for  a  residence  in 
some  other  place  ?  London  was  large.  They  could  easily 
find  room.  And  the  process,  without  control  of  any  sort  or 
kind,  and  wholly  unimpeded  by  legislation  or  governmental 
regulation,  went  on  quite  naturally — entailing  though  it 
did  consequences  of  the  very  gravest  character,  then  quite 
unthought  of,  or,  if  thought  of,  ignored  or  regarded  as 
immaterial. 


OF    LONDON  9 

This  then  was,  at  that  time,  and  still  is,  one  of  the 
great,  if  not  indeed  the  greatest  of  the  economic  forces 
at  work  which  has  unceasingly  dominated  the  housing  of 
the  people  not  only  in  the  "  City,"  but  in  the  metropolis 
outside  and  surrounding  the  "  City,"  and,  in  dominating  their 
housing,  powerfully  affected  also  their  sanitary  and  social 
condition. 

The  "  City  "  was  in  the  enjoyment  of  a  powerful  local 
governing  body — namely,  the  Lord  Mayor  and  Corporation, 
or  Common  Council,  elected  annually  by  the  ratepayers ; 
and  numerous  Acts  of  Parliament  and  Eoyal  Charters  had 
conferred  sundry  municipal  powers  upon  them. 

For  that  important  branch  of  civic  requirements — the 
regulation  of  the  thoroughfares  and  the  construction  of 
houses  and  buildings — they  had  certain  powers.  The  vastly 
more  important  sphere  of  civic  welfare — namely,  the 
matters  affecting  the  sanitary  condition  of  the  inhabitants — 
was  delegated  by  the  Corporation  to  a  body  called  the 
Commissioners  of  Sewers,  annually  elected  by  the  Common 
Council  out  of  their  own  body,  some  ninety  in  number. 
And  these  Commissioners  had,  in  effect,  authority  in  the 
City,  directly  or  indirectly,  over  nearly  every  one  of  the 
physical  conditions  which  were  likely  to  affect  the  health 
or  comfort  of  its  inhabitants.  They  could  also  appoint  a 
Medical  Officer  of  Health  to  inform  and  advise  them  upon 
public  health  matters,  and  Inspectors  to  enforce  the  laws 
and  regulations. 

The  "  City  "  was  thus  in  happy  possession  of  a  powerful 
local  authority,  and  a  large  system  of  local  government. 
And  it  stood  in  stately  isolated  grandeur,  proud  of,  and 
satisfied  with,  its  dignity,  and  privileges,  and  wealth ; 
glorying  in  its  own  importance  and  splendour ;  content 
with  its  own  system  of  government,  and  its  powers  for 
administering  its  municipal  affairs,  and  indifferent  to  the 
existence  of  the  greater  London  which  had  grown  up 
around  it,   and  which  was  ever  becoming  greater. 

Greater  indeed.  The  population  of  the  "  City  "  in  1851 
was  128,000 ;  that  of  the  metropolis  not  far  short  of 
2,500,000. 


10        THE    SANITARY    EVOLUTION 

The  number  of  inhabited  houses  in  the  "  City "  was 
hundreds  short  of  15,000.  In  the  metropolis  it  was  over 
300,000. 

The  "  City"  was  720  acres  in  extent:  what  in  1855  was 
regarded  as  the  metropoKs  was  about  75,000  acres  in 
extent. 

And  here,  with  no  visible  boundary  of  separation  between 
them,  were  what  were  still  "Parishes,"  but  what  were  in 
reality  great  towns  ;  not  merely  merged  or  rapidly  merging 
into  each  other,  but  already  merged  into  one  great 
metropolis.  Some  of  them  even  had  a  greater  population 
than  the  "City"  itself.  St.  Pancras,  for  instance,  with 
167,000  persons ;  St.  Marylebone  with  157,000,  and  Lam- 
beth with  139,000. 

Of  that  greater  London — or,  in  effect,  of  London  itself — 
there  is  a  complicated  and  tangled  story  to  tell. 

Long  before  the  middle  of  the  nineteenth  century  had 
been  reached,  the  time  had  passed  when  the  "  City  "  could 
contain  the  trade,  and  commerce,  and  manufactures,  and 
business,  which  had  grown  up.  They  had  overflowed  into 
London  outside  the  walls,  and  just  as  in  the  "City"  the 
great  economic  forces  produced  certain  definite  changes  in 
the  circumstances  and  sanitary  condition  of  the  people 
living  therein,  so,  in  the  greater  London,  the  commercial 
spirit  radiating  gradually  outwards,  produced  precisely 
similar  results,  only  on  a  far  wider  scale,  and  with  more 
potent  effect. 

Trade,  and  commerce,  and  wealth,  and  population,  were 
increasing  by  leaps  and  bounds ;  and  like  the  rings  which 
year  by  year  are  added  to  the  trunk  of  a  tree,  so  year  by 
year,  decade  by  decade,  London — the  metropolis — spread 
out,  and  grew,  and  grew.  From  something  under  one 
million  of  inhabitants  in  1801,  the  population  increased  to 
nearly  two  and  a  half  millions  in  1851,  partly  by  natural 
increase,  due  to  the  number  of  those  who  were  born  being 
greater  than  of  those  who  died,  partly  by  immigration  from 
the  country. 

This  was  London,  in  the  large  sense  of  the  title — London, 
the  great  metropolis  which  had  never  received  recognition 


OF    LONDON  11 

by  the  law  as  one  great  entity,  and  whose  boundaries 
had  never  been  fixed,  either  by  enactment,  charter,  or 
custom.* 

Dependent  as  is  the  public  health,  or  sanitary  and  social 
condition  of  the  people,  upon  the  circumstances  in  which 
they  find  themselves  placed,  and  the  economic  forces  which 
are  constantly  at  work  moulding  those  circumstances,  it  is 
in  as  great  a  degree  dependent  on  the  system  of  local 
government  in  existence  at  the  time,  upon  the  scope  and 
efficacy  of  the  laws  entrusted  to  the  local  authorities  to 
administer,  and  upon  the  administration  of  those  laws  by 
those  authorities. 

As  for  local  government — unlike  the  "City" — this  greater 
London  was  without  form  and  almost  void.  With  the 
exception  of  the  Poor  Law  Authority — the  Boards  of 
Guardians — whose  sphere  of  duty  was  distinctly  limited, 
there  was,  outside  the  boundaries  of  the  "  City,"  not  even 
the  framework  of  a  system  of  such  government ;  and  the 
confusion  and  chaos  became  ever  greater  as  years  went  on 
and  London  grew. 

There  was  no  authority  so  important  as  to  have  any 
extended  area  for  municipal  purposes  under  its  control  and 
management  except  certain  bodies,  five  in  number,  en- 
titled "  Commissioners  of  Sewers,"  charged  with  duties  in 
connection  with  the  sewerage  of  their  districts. 

In  some  parishes  some  of  the  affairs  of  the  parish  were 
managed  by  the  parishioners  in  open  vestry  assembled,  at 
which  assembly  Churchwardens,  Overseers  of  the  Poor,  and 
Surveyors  of  Highways  were  appointed  to  carry  out  certain 
limited  classes  of  work.  In  others,  the  parishioners  elected 
a  select  vestry  to  do  the  work  of  the  parish. 

But  for  many  of  the  vitally  important  municipal  affairs 
there  were  no  authorities  at  all. 

As  the  non-City  and  out-districts  became  more  thickly 
peopled,  and  streets  and  houses  increased  in  number,  the 
inconvenience  of  there  being  practically  no  local  government 
at  all  made  itself  felt. 

In  some  cases,  the  owners  of  the  estates  which  were 
-•'  Eoyal  Commission,  1853-4,  p.  xii. 


12        THE    SANITARY    EVOLUTION 

being  so  rapidly  absorbed  into  London  and  being  built 
upon,  applied  to  Parliament  for  powers  to  regulate  those 
estates. 

In  other  cases,  persons  with  interests  in  a  special  locality 
associated  themselves  together  and  obtained  a  private  Act 
of  Parliament  giving  them  authority,  under  the  name  of 
Commissioners  or  Trustees,  to  tax  and  in  a  very  limited  way 
to  govern  a  particular  district  or  group  of  streets  forming 
part  of  a  parish.  Thus  it  happened  that  a  large  number  of 
petty  bodies  of  all  sorts  and  kinds  came  into  existence. 
Any  district,  however  small,  was  suffered  to  obtain  a  local 
Act  of  Parliament  for  the  purpose  of  managing  some  of  its 
affairs,  and  this,  too,  without  any  reference  to  the  interests 
of  the  immediate  neighbours,  or  of  the  metropolis  as  a 
whole.  Most  of  the  limited  and  somewhat  primitive 
powers  possessed  by  them  were  derived  from  an  Act 
passed  in  1817,  *  and  related  to  the  paving  of  streets  and 
the  prevention  of  nuisances  therein.  Some  of  these  bodies 
were  authorised  to  appoint  surveyors  or  inspectors ;  also 
**  scavengers,  rakers,  or  cleaners  "  to  carry  away  filth  from 
streets  and  houses,  but  the  exercise  of  such  powers  was,  of 
course,  purely  optional.  Indeed,  there  were  scarcely  any 
two  parishes  in  London  governed  alike. 

What  the  exact  number  of  these  various  petty  authorities 
was  is  unknown.  Of  paving  boards  alone,  it  is  said  that 
about  the  middle  of  the  last  century  there  were  no  less  than 
eighty-four  in  the  metropolis — nineteen  of  them  being  in 
one  parish.  The  lighting  of  the  parish  of  Lambeth  was 
under  the  charge  of  nine  local  trusts.  The  affairs  of  St. 
Mary,  Newington,  were  under  the  control  of  thirteen  Boards 
or  trusts,  in  addition  to  two  turnpike  trusts,  f 

In  Westminster : — 

"  The  Court  of  Burgesses  and  the  Vestry  retained  general 
jurisdiction  over  the  whole  parish  for  certain  purposes ;  but 
the  numerous  local  Acts  so  effectually  subdivided  the 
control  and  distributed  it  among  boards,  commissioners, 
trustees,   committees,  and   other  independent  bodies,  that 

*  The  Metropolitan  Paving  Act,  57  George  III.  cap.  29. 
+  See  Report  of  Vestry,  1856-7. 


OF    LONDON  13 

uniformity,  efficiency,  and  economy  in  local  administration 
had  become  impossible."  * 

There  were  authorities  exclusively  for  paving ;  authorities 
for  street  improvements ;  authorities  for  lighting  ;  even 
authorities  for  a  bridge  across  the  river.  In  the  course  of 
years,  several  hundred  such  bodies  had  been  created,  with- 
out any  relation  one  to  the  other,  and  without  any  central 
controlling  authority,  good,  bad,  or  indifferent,  by  as  many 
Acts  of  Parliament.  They  were  mostly  self-elected,  or 
elected  for  life,  or  both;  and  were  wholly  irresponsible  to 
the  ratepayers,  or  indeed  to  any  one  else  ;  nor  were  their 
proceedings  in  any  way  open  to  the  public.  Many  of  them 
had  large  staffs  of  well  paid  officials ;  and  there  were 
perpetual  conflicts  of  jurisdiction  between  them,  and  an 
absolute  want  of  anything  approaching  to  municipal  ad- 
ministration. 

It  has  been  roughly  stated — roughly  because  there  are  no 
reliable  figures — that  there  were  about  three  hundred  such 
bodies  in  London — "jostling,  jarring,  unscientific,  cumbrous, 
and  costly  " — the  very  nature  of  many  of  them  being  "  as 
little  known  to  the  rest  of  the  community  as  that  of  the 
powers  of  darkness." 

Add  to  these  numerous,  clashing,  and  incompetent 
authorities,  various  great  public  companies  or  corporations 
— the  water  companies,  and  gas  companies,  and  dock 
companies,  each  with  its  own  special  rights — which  were 
far  more  favourably  and  generously  regarded  by  Parliament 
than  were  the  rights  of  the  public,  and  one  has  fairly 
enumerated  the  local  governing  bodies  then  existing  in 
London. 

In  fact,  in  no  parish  of  the  great  metropolis  of  London 
was  there  a  local  authority  possessed  of  powers  to  deal  in 
its  own  area  with  the  multitudinous  affairs  affecting  the 
health  and  well-being  of  the  people. 

Nor  was  there  in  the  metropolis  any  central  authority — 

no  single  body,  representative  or  even  otherwise — to  attend 

to   the  great  branches  of  municipal  administration  which 

affected   and  concerned  the    metropolis   as   a   whole,   and 

-  See  Special  Report  of  the  Vestry,  1889,  p.  208. 


14        THE    SANITARY    EVOLUTION 

which  could  only  be  dealt  with  efficiently  by  the  metropolis 
being  treated  as  a  whole. 

The  consequences  to  the  inhabitants  of  London  of  the 
absence  of  any  efficient  form  of  local  government  were  dire 
in  character,  terrible  in  extent,  and  unceasing  in  operation. 
The  higher  grades  of  society  suffered  in  some  degree,  as 
disease,  begotten  in  filth  and  nurtured  in  poverty,  often 
invaded  with  disastrous  consequences  the  homes  of  the 
well-to-do ;  but  it  was  by  the  great  mass  of  the  industrial 
classes  and  the  poorer  people  that  the  terrible  burden  of 
insanitation  had  to  be  borne,  and  upon  them  that  it  fell 
with  the  deadliest  effect. 

The  non-existence  of  a  central  authority,  or  of  any  capable 
local  authorities  whose  function  it  would  have  been  to 
protect  them  from  the  causes  of  disease,  had  resulted  in  an 
insanitary  condition  which  year  after  year  entailed  the 
waste  of  thousands  upon  thousands  of  lives.  And  the 
people,  in  the  cruel  circumstances  of  their  position,  were 
absolutely  powerless  to  help  themselves,  and  had  no  possible 
means  of  escape  from  the  ever-present,  all-surrounding 
danger. 

The  first  absolute  necessity  of  any  sanitation  whatever  is 
the  getting  rid  by  deportation  or  destruction  of  all  the  filth 
daily  made  or  left  by  man  or  beast,  for  such  filth  or  refuse 
breeds  all  manner  of  disease,  from  the  mildest  up  to  the 
very  worst  types  and  sorts,  and  promptly  becomes  not  only 
noxious  to  health,  but  fatal  to  life.  The  more  rapidly  and 
thoroughly,  therefore,  this  riddance  is  effected,  the  better  is 
it  in  every  way  for  the  general  health  of  the  public. 

So  far  as  the  metropolis  was  concerned,  this  necessity  had 
for  generation  after  generation  been  very  lightly  regarded ; 
and  when  at  last  it  so  forced  itself  upon  public  notice  that 
it  could  no  longer  be  ignored,  the  measures  taken  were 
wholly  inadequate  and  ineffective. 

What  system  there  was  in  London  as  to  the  disposal  of 
sewage  throughout  the  earlier  half  of  last  century  was  based 
upon  a  Statute  dating  so  far  back  as  Henry  VIII. 's  reign, 
amended  by  another  in  William  and  Mary's  reign.  Under 
these  Statutes  certain  bodies  had  been  constituted  by  the 


OF    LONDON  16 

Crown  as  Commissioners  of  Sewers  for  certain  portions  of 
London,  and  charged  with  the  duty  of  providing  sewers  and 
drains  in  their  respective  districts,  and  maintaining  the  same 
in  proper  working  order. 

But  what  might  have  been  good  enough  for  London  in 
the  sixteenth  or  seventeenth  centuries  was  certainly  not 
adequate  in  the  nineteenth,  when  London  had  extended 
her  borders  in  every  direction,  and  her  population  had 
reached  almost  two  and  a  half  millions.  Successive  Parlia- 
ments had  not  troubled  themselves  about  such  a  matter; 
and  this  neglect,  which  now  appears  almost  incredible,  was 
typical  of  the  habitual  attitude  of  the  governing  classes  to 
the  sanitary  requirements  of  the  masses  of  the  population  of 
the  metropolis. 

In  the  eighteen  hundred  and  forties,  five  such  bodies  of 
Commissioners  were  in  existence  in  London,  each  with  a 
separate  portion  of  the  metropolis  under  its  charge  and 
exercising  an  independent  sway  in  its  own  district;  and 
when  we  collect  the  best  testimony  of  that  time  as  to  their 
work  and  that  of  their  predecessors,  we  have  the  clearest 
demonstration  of  their  glaring  incapacity,  and  of  the  utter 
inadequacy  and  inefficiency  of  the  sewerage  in  their 
respective  districts. 

Many  miles  of  sewers  had,  it  is  true,  in  process  of  time 
been  constructed,  and  did  exist,  but  much  of  the  work  had 
been  so  misdone  that  the  cure  was  little  better  than  the 
disease. 

A  river  is  always  a  great  temptation  to  persons  to  get  rid 
of  things  they  want  to  get  rid  of,  particularly  when  the 
things  are  nasty  and  otherwise  not  easily  disposed  of. 
Londoners  only  followed  the  general  practice  when  they 
constructed  their  sewers  so  that  they  discharged  their 
contents  direct  into  the  Thames.  The  majority  of  these 
sewers  emptied  themselves  only  at  the  time  of  low  water ; 
for  as  the  tide  rose  the  outlets  of  the  sewers  were  closed, 
and  the  sewage  was  dammed  back  and  became  stagnant. 
When  the  tide  had  receded  sufficiently  to  afford  a  vent  for 
the  pent-up  sewage,  it  flowed  out  and  deposited  itself  along 
the  banks  of  the  river,  evolving  gases  of  a  foul  and  offensive 


16         THE    SANITARY    EVOLUTION 

character.  And  then  the  sewage  was  not  only  carried  up 
the  river  by  the  rising  tide,  but  it  was  brought  back  again 
into  the  heart  of  the  metropolis,  there  to  mix  with  each 
day's  fresh  supply  of  sewage;  the  result  being  that  "the 
portion  of  the  river  within  the  metropolitan  district  became 
scarcely  less  impure  and  offensive  than  the  foulest  of  the 
sewers  themselves." 

This  was  bad  enough,  but  there  were  miles  of  sewers 
which,  through  defects  of  construction  or  disrepair,  did  not 
even  carry  off  the  sewage  from  the  houses  and  streets  to 
the  river,  but  had  become  "  similar  to  elongated  cesspools," 
and,  as  such,  actual  sources  and  creators  of  disease. 

Incredible  almost  were  the  stupidities  perpetrated  by 
these  Commissioners  in  regard  to  the  construction  of  the 
sewers.  At  even  so  late  a  date  as  1845  no  survey  had  been 
made  of  the  metropolis  for  the  purposes  of  drainage ;  there 
was  a  different  level  in  each  of  the  districts,  and  no  attempt 
was  made  to  conform  the  works  of  the  several  districts  to 
one  general  plan.  Large  sewers  were  made  to  discharge 
into  smaller  sewers.  Some  were  higher  than  the  cesspools 
which  they  were  supposed  to  drain,  whilst  others  had  been 
so  constructed  that  to  be  of  any  use  the  sewage  would  have 
had  to  flow  uphill ! 

It  might  reasonably  have  been  expected  that  in  the  nine- 
teenth century,  at  least,  the  twenty  parishes  which  formed 
the  district  of  the  Westminster  Commissioners  of  Sewers 
would  have  been  equal  to  producing  an  enlightened  and 
capable  body  as  Commissioners,  but  the  Westminster  Court 
of  Sewers  was  certainly  not  such.  Even  their  own  chief 
surveyor,  in  1847,  stigmatised  it  as  a  body  "totally  incom- 
petent to  manage  the  great  and  important  works  committed 
to  their  care  and  control." 

Upon  it  were  builders,  surveyors,  architects,  and  district 
surveyors — a  class  of  persons  whose  opinions  "might  cer- 
tainly be  biassed  with  relation  to  particular  lines  of  drains 
and  sewers." 

Of  another  of  the  courts — namely,  the  Finsbury  Court 
of  Sewers — one  of  the  Commission  had  been  outlawed; 
another  was  a  bankrupt. 


OF    LONDON  17 

It  was  stated  at  the  time  that  "jobbery  and  favouritism 
and  incompetence  were  rampant,"  and  that  the  system  was 
"  radically  wrong  and  rotten  to  the  core."  Certain  it  is  that 
these  bodies  failed  completely  to  cope  with  the  requirements 
of  the  time.  London  was  spreading  out  in  all  directions, 
and  the  increase  of  houses  and  population  was  very  rapid. 
Practically  no  effort,  however — certainly  no  adequate  effort — 
was  made  by  the  various  bodies  of  Commissioners  to  provide 
these  new  and  growing  districts  with  the  means  of  getting 
rid  of  their  sewage.  And  then,  inasmuch  as  the  sewage  had 
somehow  or  other  to  be  got  rid  of,  and  some  substitute  for 
sewers  devised,  the  surface  drains,  and  millstreams,  and 
ditches  were  appropriated  to  use  and  converted  into  open 
sewers  or  "  stagnant  ponds  of  pestilential  sewage." 

London  was  **  seamed  with  open  ditches." 

According  to  contemporary  reports  there  were  in  Lambeth 
numerous  open  ditches  of  the  most  horrible  description. 
Bermondsey  was  intersected  by  ditches  of  a  similar  cha- 
racter, and  abounded  with  fever  nests.  Rotherhithe  was 
the  same.  Hackney  Brook,  formerly  "  a  pure  stream,"  had 
become  "  a  foul  open  sewer."  *  In  St.  Saviour's  Union  the 
sewers  were  in  a  dreadful  condition  ..."  the  receptacle  of 
all  kinds  of  refuse,  such  as  putrid  fish,  dead  dogs,  cats,  &c. 
Greenwich  was  not  drained  or  sewered." 

What  certainly  was  conclusively  demonstrated  was  that 
the  existence  of  several  bodies  of  Commissioners,  each  with 
a  district  to  itself,  presented  an  insuperable  obstacle  to  any 
general  system  of  sewerage  for  greater  London ;  and  that 
one  capable  central  authority  was  the  first  essential  of  an 
adequate  and  efficient  system  for  London  as  a  whole. 

Thus,  then,  in  this  first  essential  of  all  sanitation— one 
might  say  of  civilisation — no  adequate  provision  was  made 
by  Parliament  for  the  safety  of  the  metropolis ;  whilst  as  to 
other  essentials  of  sanitation,  there  were  no  laws  for  the 
prevention  of  the  perpetration  of  every  sanitary  iniquity; 
and  such  authorities  as  there  were  failed  absolutely  to  use 
even  the  few  powers  they  possessed. 

The  defective  and  inefficient  sewerage  of  the  metropolis 

*  Eeport  of  Commission  of  1845. 
3 


18        THE    SANITARY    EVOLUTION 

precluded  the  possibility  of  any  proper  system  of  house 
drainage,  for  there  being  few  sewers  there  were  few  drains, 
and  consequently  instead  of  drains  from  the  houses  to  the 
sewers  there  were  cesspools  under  almost  every  house.  At 
the  census  of  1841  there  were  over  270,000  houses  in  the 
metropolis.  It  was  known,  then,  that  most  houses  had  a 
cesspool  under  them,  and  that  a  large  number  had  two, 
three,  or  four  under  them.  Some  of  them  were  so  huge 
that  the  only  name  considered  adequate  to  describe  them 
was  "cess-lake."  In  many  districts  even  the  houses  in 
which  the  better  classes  lived  had  neither  drain  nor  sewer — 
nothing  but  cesspools ;  and  many  of  the  very  best  portions 
of  the  West  End  were  "literally  honeycombed"  with  them. 
And  so  jealous  was  the  law  as  regarded  the  rights  of  private 
property  that  so  late  as  1845  owners  were  not  to  be  inter- 
fered with  as  regarded  even  their  cesspools,  no  matter  how 
great  the  nuisance  might  be  to  their  neighbours,  no  matter 
how  dangerous  to  the  community  at  large.  Indeed,  the 
Commissioners  of  Sewers  had  no  power  to  compel  landlords 
or  house-owners  to  make  drains  into  the  sewers,  and  of 
their  own  motion  the  landlords  would  take  no  action. 

In  the  lower  part  of  Westminster  the  Commissioners  of 
Sewers  had  actually  carried  sewers  along  some  of  the  streets, 
but  they  found  "very  little  desire  on  the  part  of  the 
landlords  "  to  use  them.  "  So  long  as  the  owners  get  their 
rent  they  do  not  care  about  drainage.  .  .  .  The  landlords 
will  not  move ;  their  property  pays  them  very  well ;  they 
will  not  put  themselves  to  any  expense ;  they  are  satisfied 
with  it  as  it  stands." 

Strange  level  of  satisfaction !  when  one  reads  the 
following  evidence  given  two  years  later  before  the 
Metropolitan  Sewers  Commission  : — 

"  There  are  hundreds,  I  may  say  thousands,  of  houses  in 
this  metropolis  which  have  no  drainage  whatever,  and  the 
greater  part  of  them  have  stinking,  overflowing  cesspools. 
And  there  are  also  hundreds  of  streets,  courts,  and  alleys, 
that  have  no  sewers ;  and  how  the  drainage  and  filth  is 
cleared  away,  and  how  the  poor  miserable  inhabitants  live 
in  such  places  it  is  hard  to  tell. 


OF    LONDON  19 

"In  pursuance  of  my  duties,  from  time  to  time,  I  have 
visited  very  many  places  where  filth  was  lying  scattered 
about  the  rooms,  vaults,  cellars,  areas,  and  yards,  so  thick, 
and  so  deep,  that  it  was  hardly  possible  to  move  for  it.  I 
have  also  seen  in  such  places  human  beings  living  and 
sleeping  in  sunk  rooms  with  filth  from  overflowing  cesspools 
exuding  through  and  running  down  the  walls  and  over  the 
floors.  .  .  .  The  effects  of  the  stench,  effluvia,  and  poisonous 
gases  constantly  evolving  from  these  foul  accumulations 
were  apparent  in  the  haggard,  wan,  and  swarthy  coun- 
tenances, and  enfeebled  limbs,  of  the  poor  creatures  whom 
I  found  residing  over  and  amongst  these  dens  of  pollution 
and  wretchedness."  * 

And  this  witness  was  unable  to  refrain  from  passing  a 
verdict  upon  what  he  had  seen  : — 

"  To  allow  such  a  state  of  things  to  exist  is  a  blot 
upon  this  scientific  and  enlightened  age,  an  age,  too,  teem- 
ing with  so  much  wealth,  refinement,  and  benevolence. 
Morality,  and  the  whole  economy  of  domestic  existence, 
is  outraged  and  deranged  by  so  much  suffering  and  misery. 
Let  not,  therefore,  the  morality,  the  health,  the  comfort  of 
thousands  of  our  fellow  creatures  in  this  metropolis  be  in 
the  hands  of  those  who  care  not  about  these  things,  but  let 
good  and  wholesome  laws  be  enacted  to  compel  houses  to 
be  kept  in  a  cleanly  and  healthy  condition." 

There  were,  it  was  said,  "a  formidable  host  of  diffi- 
culties "  as  regarded  the  execution  of  improved  works  of 
house  drainage. 

There  was  the  opposition  of  the  proprietors  on  the 
ground  of  expense ;  there  were  the  provisions  of  the  Act  of 
Parliament,!  which  were  so  intricate  as  to  be  almost 
unintelligible  and  unworkable ;  there  was  the  want  of 
a  proper  outfall  for  the  sewage ;  and  the  want  of  a  supply 
of  water  to  wash  away  the  filth — a  possible  explanation  for 
the  existing  state  of  abomination,  but  certainly  not  a 
justification  for  the  prolonged  inaction  of  successive 
Parliaments  and  Governments  in  allowing  affairs  to  reach 

*  J.  Phillips,  p.  63  Metropolitan  Sewers  Commission,  1847. 
f  See  P.P.  1854-5,  vol.  liii.  p.  249,  &c. 


20        THE    SANITARY    EVOLUTION 

so  frightful  a  pass,  and  for  dooming  the  people  to  a 
condition  of  things  which  it  was  entirely  beyond  their 
power  to  remedy  even  as  regarded  the  single  house  they 
inhabited. 

Just  as  everything  connected  with  sewerage  and  drainage 
was  so  placidly  neglected,  and  so  fearfully  bad,  so  also  was 
it  as  regarded  another  matter  of  even  more  vital  neces- 
sity, namely,  the  supply  of  water  to  the  inhabitants  of 
London  for  drinking,  or  for  domestic,  trade,  or  sanitary 
purposes. 

"Water  is  essential  as  an  article  of  food.  Water  is 
necessary  to  personal  cleanliness.  Water  is  essential  to 
external  cleansing,  whether  of  houses,  streets,  closets,  or 
sewers." 

Manifestly,  the  supply  of  water  was  not  a  matter  which 
the  individual  in  a  large  community  such  as  London  could 
in  any  way  make  provision  for  by  his  own  independent 
effort.  And  yet  there  was  no  public  body  in  London, 
central  or  local,  representative  or  otherwise,  charged  vdth 
the  duty  of  securing  to  the  people  even  the  minimum 
quantity  necessary  for  life. 

Early  in  the  seventeenth  century  the  New  Eiver  Company 
was  formed  for  the  supply  of  water  to  London.  And  as 
years  went  on  Parliament  evidently  considered  it  fulfilled 
its  obligations  in  this  respect  by  making  over  to  sundry 
private  companies  the  right  of  supplying  to  the  citizens  of 
London  this  vital  requirement,  or,  as  it  has  been  termed, 
this  "life-blood  of  cities";  and  Parliament  had  done  this 
vdthout  even  taking  any  guarantee  or  security  for  a  proper 
distribution  to  the  people,  or  for  the  purity  of  the  water,  or 
the  sufficiency  of  its  supply. 

Practically,  a  generous  Parliament  had  bestowed  as  a 
free  gift  upon  these  Water  Companies  the  valuable  mono- 
poly, so  far  as  London  was  concerned,  of  this  necessity 
of  life. 

Although  by  the  middle  of  the  nineteenth  century  there 
was  no  portion  of  the  metropolis  into  which  the  mains  and 
pipes  of  some  of  the  companies  had  not  been  carried,  yet, 
as  the  companies  were  under  no  compulsion  to  supply  it  to 


OF    LONDON  21 

all  houses,  large  numbers  of  houses,  and  particularly  those 
of  the  poorer  classes,  received  no  supply.  Indeed,  in  many 
parts  of  London  there  were  whole  streets  in  which  not  a 
single  house  had  water  laid  on  to  the  premises. 

In  the  district  supplied  by  the  New  River  Company, 
containing  about  900,000  persons,  about  one-third  of  the 
population  were  unsupplied ;  and  in  the  very  much  smaller 
area  of  the  Southwark  Company's  district  about  30,000 
persons  had  no  supply. 

Even  in  1850  it  was  computed  that  80,000  houses  in 
London,  inhabited  by  640,000  persons,  were  unsupplied 
with  water. 

A  very  large  proportion  of  the  people  could  only  obtain 
water  from  stand-pipes  erected  in  the  courts  or  places,  and 
that  only  at  intermittent  periods,  and  for  a  very  short  time 
in  the  day ;  sometimes,  indeed,  only  on  alternate  days,  and 
not  at  all  on  Sunday. 

"  To  these  pipes,"  wrote  a  contemporary,  "  the  inhabi- 
tants have  to  run,  leaving  their  occupation,  and  collecting 
their  share  of  this  indispensable  commodity  in  vessels  of 
whatever  kind  might  be  at  hand.  The  water  is  then  kept 
in  the  close,  ill-ventilated  tenements  they  occupy  until  it  is 
required  for  use."* 

The  quality  of  the  water  which  was  supplied  by  the  com- 
panies left  much  to  be  desired.  That  supplied  by  the  New 
Eiver  Company  was,  as  a  rule,  fairly  good  in  quality ;  but 
that  supplied  by  the  other  companies  was  very  much  the 
reverse.  Financial  profit  being  their  first  and  principal 
consideration,  they  got  it  from  where  it  was  obtainable  at 
least  capital  outlay  or  cost,  regardless  of  purity  or  impurity ; 
and  almost  without  exception  took  it  from  the  Thames — 
**  the  great  sewer  of  London  " — took  it,  too,  from  precisely 
the  places  where  the  river  was  foulest  and  most  contami- 
nated by  sewage  and  other  filth ;  and  as  there  were  no 
filtering  beds  in  which  it  could  have  been  to  some  extent 
purified  before  its  distribution  to  householders,  its  compo- 
sition can  best  be  imagined. 

Looking  at  the  great  river  even  now  in  its  purified  state, 
*  Eeport  of  Medical  Officer  of  Health  for  ClerkenweU,  1856. 


22        THE    SANITARY    EVOLUTION 

as  it  sweeps  under  "Westminster  Bridge,  any  one  would 
shudder  at  the  idea  of  being  compelled  to  drink  its  water 
in  its  muddy  and  unfiltered  state,  and  of  one's  health  and 
life  being  dependent  on  the  supply  from  such  a  source. 
How  infinitely  more  repugnant  it  must  have  been  when 
the  river  was  "the  great  sewer"  of  the  metropolis. 

The  great  shortage  of  company-supplied  water  compelled 
large  numbers  of  people  to  have  recourse  to  the  pumps 
which  still  existed  in  considerable  numbers  in  many  parts 
of  London,  the  water  from  which  was  drawn  from  shallow 
wells. 

The  water  of  these  "slaughter  wells,"  as  they  have 
been  termed,  appears  to  have  combined  all  the  worst 
features  of  water,  and  to  have  contained  all  the  ingredients 
most  dangerous  to  health. 

"If,"  wrote  a  Medical  Officer  of  Health  some  years  later, 
"  the  soil  through  which  the  rain  passes  be  composed  of  the 
refuse  of  centuries,  if  it  be  riddled  with  cesspools  and  the 
remains  of  cesspools,  with  leaky  gas-pipes  and  porous 
sewers,  if  it  has  been  the  depository  of  the  dead  for  genera- 
tion after  generation,  the  soil  so  polluted  cannot  yield  water 
of  any  degree  of  purity."  * 

As  all  these  "ifs"  were  grim  actualities,  the  water  of  such 
wells  was  revolting  in  its  impurity  and  deadly  in  its  compo- 
sition. 

Of  Clerkenwell  it  was  indeed  stated  positively  that  "  the 
shallow-well  water  of  the  parish  received  the  drainage 
water  of  Highgate  cemetery,  of  numerous  burial  grounds, 
and  of  the  innumerable  cesspools  in  the  district." 

On  the  south  side  of  the  river  the  water  in  most  of  the 
shallow  wells  was  tidal — from  the  Thames,  which  is  a 
sufficient  description  of  the  quality  thereof — and  where 
people  did  not  live  close  enough  to  the  river  to  draw  water 
from  it  for  their  daily  wants,  they  took  it  from  these  tidal 
wells.  Vile  as  it  was,  it  had  to  be  used  in  default  of  any 
better. 

Where  such  wells  were  not  available,  the  water  for  all 

*  See  Report  of  Medical  Officer  of  Health  for  St.  Giles', 


OF    LONDON  23 

household  consumption  was  taken  from  tidal  ditches  which 
were  to  all  intents  and  purposes  only  open  sewers.  A  con- 
temporary report  gives  a  graphic  picture  of  this  form  of 
supply  * : — 

**  In  Jacob's  Island  (in  Bermondsey)  may  be  seen  at  any 
time  of  the  day  women  dipping  water,  with  pails  attached 
by  ropes  to  the  backs  of  the  houses,  from  a  foul,  foetid  ditch, 
its  banks  coated  with  a  compound  of  mud  and  filth,  and 
with  offal  and  carrion — the  water  to  be  used  for  every  pur- 
pose, culinary  ones  not  excepted." 

An  adequate  supply  of  wholesome  water  has  for  very  long 
been  recognised  as  of  primary  sanitary  importance  to  all 
populations,  but  with  a  densely  crowded  town  population 
the  need  of  care  as  to  the  quality  of  the  supplies  is  peculiarly 
urgent.  And  yet,  through  the  indifference  of  successive 
Governments,  the  people  of  the  great  metropolis  of  London 
were  most  inadequately  supplied  with  water,  and  what  water 
was  supplied  to  the  great  mass  of  them,  or  was  available  for 
them,  was  of  the  foulest  and  most  dangerous  description. 
The  inadequacy  of  supply  not  alone  put  a  constant  premium 
upon  dirt  and  uncleanliness,  both  in  house  and  person,  but 
it  intensified  the  evils  of  the  existing  sewers  and  drains,  as 
without  water  efficient  drainage  was  impossible.  And 
the  horrible  impurity  of  the  water  affected  disastrously 
and  continuously  the  health  of  the  great  mass  of  the 
people. 

Many  dire  lessons,  costing  thousands  upon  thousands  of 
lives,  were  needed  before  it  was  borne  in  on  the  Government 
of  the  country  that  the  arrangements  regarding  the  supply 
of  water  for  the  people  of  London  required  radical  amend- 
ment. 

Much  of  the  health  of  a  city  depends  upon  the  width  of 
its  thoroughfares,  the  free  circulation  of  air  in  its  streets 
and  around  its  buildings,  and  the  sound  and  sanitary  con- 
struction of  its  houses. 

In  every  one  of  these  respects  all  the  central  parts  of 
London  were  remarkably  defective.  The  great  metropolis 
had  grown,  and  had  been  permitted  to  grow,  mostly  at 
*  Report  of  General  Board  of  Health,  1850. 


24        THE    SANITARY    EVOLUTION 

haphazard.  Large  parks  and  open  spaces  there  were  in  the 
richer  and  more  well-to-do  parts,  and  some  handsome 
thoroughfares  ;  but  "  there  were  districts  in  London 
through  which  no  great  thoroughfares  passed,  and  which 
were  wholly  occupied  by  a  dense  population  composed  of 
the  lowest  class  of  persons,  who,  being  entirely  secluded 
from  the  observation  and  influence  lof  better  educated 
neighbours,  exhibited  a  state  of  moral  degradation  deeply 
to  be  deplored."* 

Parliament  had  taken  some  interest  as  to  the  width  of 
the  streets,  and  had  shown  some  anxiety  for  improvements 
in  them.  Hence,  much  local  and  general  legislation  was 
from  time  to  time  directed  to  control  the  erection  of  build- 
ings beyond  the  regular  lines  of  buildings.  Thus  the  Metro- 
politan Paving  Act,  1817,  contained  stringent  provisions 
as  to  projections  which  might  obstruct  the  circulation 
of  air  and  light,  or  be  inconvenient  or  incommodious  to 
passengers  along  carriage  or  foot  ways  in  certain  parts  of 
the  metropolis. 

In  1828  the  Act  for  Consolidating  the  Metropolis  Turnpike 
Trusts,  also,  contained  certain  restrictive  provisions,  but 
these  were  rendered  futile  by  the  construction  put  upon  its 
terms  by  the  magistrates. 

Again,  in  1844,  further  enactments  were  made  by  the 
Metropolitan  Building  Act  to  restrain  projections  from 
buildings ;  but  after  a  short  administration  of  its  provisions 
it  was  found  that  shops  built  on  the  gardens  in  front  of  the 
houses,  or  on  the  forecourts  of  areas,  did  not  come  within 
the  terms  of  the  Act.  And  so  the  Act,  in  that  very  impor- 
tant respect,  was  useless. 

The  action  of  Parliament  had  been  mainly  prompted  by 
the  necessity  for  increased  facilities  of  communication,  and 
by  the  desire  to  safeguard  house  property  from  destruction 
by  fire ;  whilst  the  most  important  of  all  aspects  of  the 
housing  of  the  people — namely,  the  sanitary  aspect — 
received  no  consideration,  and  was  completely  ignored  as 
a  thing  of  no  consequence. 

*  Eeport  of  Select  Committee  of  the  House  of  Commons,  P.P.  1838, 
vol.  xxviii. 


OF    LONDON  26 

But  whatever  the  motive  of  action  by  Parliament,  the 
ensuing  legislation  was  in  the  main  inoperative  or  ineffec- 
tive. The  resolution  of  landowners  to  secure  the  highest 
prices  for  their  property,  and  the  determination  of  builders, 
once  they  got  possession  of  any  land,  to  utilise  every  inch  of 
it  for  building,  and  so  to  make  the  utmost  money  they  could 
out  of  it,  defeated  the  somewhat  loosely  drawn  enactments. 
Means  of  evading  the  legislative  provisions  were  promptly 
discovered,  and,  in  despite  of  legislation,  builders,  architects, 
and  surveyors  of  the  metropolis  were  unrestrained  in  their 
encroachments  upon  areas  and  forecourts — at  times  even 
were  successful  in  breaking  the  existing  lines  of  buildings  in 
metropolitan  streets  or  roads  by  encroachments  which  were 
only  discovered  too  late  to  be  prevented. 

Nor  was  there  anything  to  prevent  houses  being  built  on 
uncovered  spaces  at  the  backs  of  existing  buildings,  thus 
taking  'up  whatever  air-space  had  been  left  between  the 
previous  buildings.  Hence,  great  blocks  of  ground  abso- 
lutely covered  with  buildings,  back  to  back,  side  to  side, 
any  way  so  long  as  a  building  could  by  any  ingenuity  be 
fitted  in.  Hence  the  culs-de-sac,  the  small  and  stifling 
courts  and  alleys.  Nor  were  there  any  regulations  for- 
bidding certain  kinds  of  buildings  which  would  be  injurious 
to  the  health  of  their  inhabitants.  Hence  the  mean  and 
flimsy  and  insanitary  houses  which  were  being  erected  in 
the  outer  circle  of  the  metropolis,  and  which  wrought  havoc 
with  the  health  and  lives  of  the  people.  Hence,  too,  the 
erection,  on  areas  and  forecourts,  of  buildings  which 
narrowed  the  streets,  diminished  the  air-spaces  and  means 
of  ventilation,  and  destroyed  the  appearance  of  the  localities. 

And  once  up  they  had  come  to  stay ;  for  years  were  to 
pass  before  the  Legislature  created  any  effective  means  for 
securing  their  amelioration,  and  for  generations  they  were 
permitted  to  exercise  their  evil  and  deadly  sway  over  the 
people,  and  to  scatter  broadcast  throughout  the  community 
the  seeds  of  disease  and  death. 

The  then  existing  actual  state  of  the  case  was  summed 
up  by  Dr.  Southwood  Smith  in  his  evidence  before  the 
Select  Committee  of  the  House  of  Commons  in  1840: — 


26        THE    SANITARY    EVOLUTION 

"  At  present  no  more  regard  is  paid  in  the  construction 
of  houses  to  the  health  of  the  inhabitants  than  is  paid  to 
the  health  of  pigs  in  making  sties  for  them.  In  point  of 
fact  there  is  not  so  much  attention  paid  to  it." 

Legislation  against  some  of  the  evils  which  had  already 
reached  huge  proportions,  and  which,  as  London  grew, 
were  spreading  and  developing,  was  not  alone  ineffective, 
but  earlier  legislation,  in  one  notorious  Act,  had  been  the 
direct  incentive  to,  and  cause  of  evils.  This  was  the  Act 
which  imposed  a  tax  upon  windows.  *  In  effect  this  Act 
said  to  the  builder,  "  Plan  your  houses  with  as  few  openings 
as  possible.  Let  every  house  be  ill -ventilated  by  shutting 
out  the  light  and  air,  and  as  a  reward  for  your  ingenuity 
you  shall  be  subject  to  a  less  amount  of  taxation,"  f 

The  builder  acted  upon  this  counsel,  and  the  tax  operated 
as  a  premium  upon  the  omission  from  a  building  of  every 
window  which  could  by  any  device  be  spared ;  with  the 
result  that  passages,  closets,  cellars,  and  roofs — the  very 
places  where  mephitic  vapours  were  most  apt  to  lodge — 
were  left  almost  entirely  without  ventilation,  | 

In  effect,  the  window  duties  compelled  multitudes  to  live 
and  breathe  in  darkened  rooms  and  poisoned  air,  and  with 
a  rapidly  increasing  population  the  evils  resulting  therefrom 
were  being  steadily  intensified. 

Admirable  was  the  comment  passed  upon  the  tax  in 
1843  :— 

"  Health  is  the  capital  of  the  working  man,  and  nothing 
can  justify  a  tax  affecting  the  health  of  the  people,  and 
especially  of  the  labouring  community,  whose  bodily  health 
and;  strength  constitute  their  wealth,  and,  oftentimes,  their 
only  possession.  It  is  a  tax  upon  light  and  air,  a  tax  more 
vicious  in  principle  and  more  injurious  in  its  practical  con- 
sequences than  a  tax  upon  food." 

Not  until  1851  was  the  tax  abandoned,  but  its  evil  con- 


*  38  George  III,  cap.  40, 

f  An  opening  only  a  foot  square  cost  an  additional  8s.  3d.  tax  per 
annum. 

I  1843,  Commissioners  on  State  of  Towns.  Evidence  of  W.  E. 
Hickson,  p.  436. 


OF    LONDON  27 

sequences,  wrought  in  stone  and  embodied  in  bricks  and 
mortar,  endured  many  a  long  year  after. 

The  existing  laws  or  regulations  as  to  building  were 
wholly  inadequate  to  secure  healthy  houses.  And  there 
was  no  public  authority  with  power  to  compel  attention  to 
the  internal  condition  of  houses  so  as  to  prevent  their  con- 
tinuance in  such  a  filthy  and  unwholesome  state  as  to  en- 
danger the  health  of  the  public.  There  was  no  power  to 
compel  house  owners  to  make  drains  and  carry  them  to  the 
common  sewer  where  it  existed.  No  persons  were  appointed 
to  carry  into  effect  such  communication.  No  persons  were 
authorised  to  make  inspection  and  to  report  upon  these 
matters. 

The  poor,  or,  indeed,  the  working  classes  generally,  were 
powerless  to  alter  or  amend  the  construction  of  the  dwellings 
in  which  they  were  compelled  to  reside,  still  less  to  alter 
their  surroundings.  Any  improvement  in  the  condition  of 
their  dwellings  could  only  be  by  voluntary  action  on  the 
part  of  the  landlords,  or  of  interference  by  Government  to 
compel  that  measure  of  justice  to  the  poor,  and  of  economy 
to  the  ratepayers. 

Parliament  failed  to  interfere  with  any  effect ;  and  as  to 
the  landlords  or  house-owners,  their  interest  ran  all  the 
other  way. 

Few  persons  of  large  capital  built  houses  as  a  speculation, 
or  had  anything  to  do  with  them.  Many,  however,  who 
were  desirous  of  making  the  highest  possible  interest  on 
their  money  acquired  either  freehold  or  leasehold  land,  and 
built  cheap  and  ill-constructed  houses  upon  it  without  the 
least  regard  to  the  health  of  the  future  inmates. 

And  the  small  landlords  were  often  the  most  unscrupulous 
with  regard  to  the  condition  of  the  houses  they  let,  and 
exacted  the  highest  rents. 

Inasmuch  as  this  freedom  as  regarded  house  construction 
had  been  going  on  almost  from  time  immemorial,  it  was  not 
only  the  newly-built  houses  which  were  bad.  Earlier  built 
houses  had  rapidly  fallen  into  disrepair  and  semi-ruin,  and 
were  steadily  going  from  bad  to  worse,  and  becoming  ever 
less  and  less  suitable  for  human  dweUings. 


28        THE    SANITARY    EVOLUTION 

The  following  description*  of  parts  of  St.  Giles  and 
Spitalfields  shows  what,  under  a  state  of  freedom  as  to 
building,  had  been  attained  to  in  1840,  and  is  typical  of 
what  so  extensively  prevailed  in  the  central  parts  of 
London  : — 

"  Those  districts  are  composed  almost  entirely  of  small 
courts,  very  small  and  very  narrow,  the  access  to  them 
being  only  under  gateways ;  in  many  cases  they  have  been 
larger  courts  originally,  and  afterwards  built  in  again  with 
houses  back  to  back,  without  any  outlet  behind,  and  only 
consisting  of  two  rooms,  and  almost  a  ladder  for  a  staircase; 
and  those  houses  are  occupied  by  an  immense  number  of 
inhabitants ;  they  are  all  as  dark  as  possible,  and  as  filthy 
as  it  is  possible  for  any  place  to  be,  arising  from  want  of 
air  and  light." 

Here  is  another  description — that  of  '*  Christopher 
Court,"  a  cul-de-sac  in  Whitechapel — given,  in  1848,  by 
Dr.  Allison,  one  of  the  surgeons  of  the  Union : — 

"This  was  one  of  the  dirtiest  places  which  human 
beings  ever  visited — the  horrible  stench  which  polluted 
the  place  seemed  to  be  closed  in  hermetically  among  the 
people ;  not  a  breath  of  fresh  air  reached  them — all  was 
abominable." 

It  is  needless  to  multiply  instances.  There  is  a  dreadful 
unanimity  of  testimony  from  all  parts  of  London  as  to  the 
miserable  character  and  condition  of  the  houses  in  which  in 
the  middle  of  the  nineteenth  century  the  industrial  and  the 
lower  classes  were  forced  to  live ;  the  deficiency  or  total 
absence  of  drainage,  the  universal  filth  and  abomination  of 
every  kind,  the  fearful  overcrowding,  the  ravages  of  every 
type  of  disease,  and  the  absolute  misery  in  which  masses 
struggled  for  existence. 

The  density  of  houses  upon  an  area  has  long  been  recog- 
nised as  one  of  the  great  contributing  causes  to  the  ill- 
health  of  a  community,  but  when  coupled  with  the 
overcrowding  of  human  beings  in  those  houses,  the  com- 
bined results  are  always  disastrous  in  the  extreme. 

*  Select  Committee,  1840.     Evidence  of  J.  Pennethorne,  p.  166. 


OF    LONDON  29 

Overcrowding  had  been  a  long-standing  evil  in  London  ; 
had  existed  far  back  in  history. 

As  London  had  grown,  the  evil  had  grown ;  and  about 
the  middle  of  the  last  century  it  was  immeasurably  greater 
than  ever  before,  and  its  disastrous  consequences  were  on 
a  vastly  larger  scale. 

The  great  economic  forces  which  resulted,  in  certain 
districts  of  London,  in  the  destruction  of  houses  and  great 
clearances  of  ground,  had  largely  reduced  the  available 
accommodation  for  dwellings,  and  the  expelled  inhabitants, 
chained  to  the  locality  by  the  fact  of  their  livelihood  being 
dependent  upon  their  residence  being  close  by,  were  forced 
to  invade  the  yet  remaining  places  in  the  neighbourhood 
suited  to  their  means.  As  the  circle  of  possible  habitations 
contracted,  while  the  numbers  seeking  accommodation 
therein  increased,  a  larger  population  was  crowded  into  an 
ever-diminishing  number  of  houses. 

It  was  also  a  most  unfortunate  but  apparently  inevitable 
consequence  that  once  a  beginning  was  made  to  improve 
some  of  the  streets  and  thoroughfares  of  London,  and  to 
substitute  in  any  district  a  better  class  of  houses  and  shops 
for  those  actually  existing,  the  improvements  necessarily 
involved  increased  overcrowding  in  that  particular  locality 
and  in  those  adjoining  it.     But  so  it  was. 

Thus,  in  the  eighteen  hundred  and  forties  a  new  street — 
New  Oxford  Street — was  formed.  It  was  driven  through 
"a  hive  of  human  beings,  a  locality  overflowing  with  human 
life."  Evidence  given  before  the  Commission  in  1847 
described  the  results  : — 

"  The  effect  has  been  to  lessen  the  population  of  my 
neighbourhood  by  about  5,000  people,  and  therefore  to 
improve  it  at  the  expense  of  other  parts  of  London.  Some 
have  gone  to  the  streets  leading  to  Drury  Lane,  some  to 
St.  Luke's,  Whitechapel,  but  more  to  St.  Marylebone  and 
St.  Pancras.  The  vestries  of  St.  Marylebone  and  St.  Pan- 
eras  disliked  this  very  much.  Places  in  the  two  latter 
parishes  which  were  before  bad  enough  are  now  intoler- 
able, owing  to  the  number  of  poor  who  formerly  lived  in 
St.  Giles'." 


30        THE    SANITARY    EVOLUTION 

And  a  year  or  so  later,  from  across  the  river,  came  the 
complaint  from  Lambeth  that  "  owing  to  the  number  of 
houses  pulled  down  in  Westminster  and  other  places,  there 
had  been  a  great  influx  of  Irish  and  other  labourers  which 
necessarily  caused  a  great  overcrowding  of  the  miserable 
domiciles  already  overfull." 

This  Lambeth  complaint  is  specially  interesting,  as  it 
refers  to  another  great  cause  of  overcrowding — the  con- 
stant immigration  into  London  of  labourers  and  poor  people 
in  search  of  work  or  food. 

Owing  to  the  ever  increasing  and  urgent  demand  for 
house  accommodation  for  the  working  and  poorer  classes, 
it  became  a  very  remunerative  proceeding  for  the  occupier 
of  a  house  to  sub-let  it  in  portions  to  separate  families  or 
individuals,  and  the  practice  gradually  extended  to  and 
absorbed  streets  hitherto  belonging  to  the  better  class. 
The  owner  of  a  property  let  his  whole  house  to  a  tenant ; 
this  tenant,  seeing  an  easy  way  of  making  money,  sub-let 
the  rooms  in  it  in  twos  or  threes,  or  even  separately,  at  a 
very  profitable  rate  to  individual  tenants.  Nor  did  the 
sub-letting  end  here,  for  these  tenants  let  off  even  the  sides 
or  corners  of  their  room  or  rooms  to  individuals  or  families 
who  were  unable  to  bear  the  expense  of  a  whole  room. 
And  so  the  house  sank  at  once  into  being  a  "tenement 
house " — that  prolific  source  of  the  very  worst  evils, 
sanitary,  physical,  and  moral,  to  those  who  inhabited 
them. 

Even  the  underground  kitchens  and  cellars,  which  were 
never  intended  for  human  habitation,  were  let  to  tenants, 
and  thus  turned  to  financial  profit.*  It  mattered  not  that 
they  were  without  air  or  ventilation,  or  even  light ;  it 
mattered  not  that  they  were  damp,  or  sometimes  even 
inundated  with  the  overflow  of  cesspools ;  it  mattered 
not  that  they  were  inhabited  contrary  to  the  provisions 
of  Section  53  of  the  Building  Act  of  1844,  for  that  section 
was  of  no  operative  effect  whatever.  It  is  true  that  "  Over- 
seers "  were  to  report  to  the  "  Official  Eeferees,"  who  were 

*  P.P.  1854,  vol.  xlv.  p.  2.     In  part  of  the  parish  of  St.  Marylebone 
only  there  were  1,132  underground  or  cellar  dwellings. 


OF    LONDON  31 

to  give  notice  to  and  inform  the  owners  and  occupiers  of 
such  dwellings  as  to  the  consequences  of  disobeying  the 
Statute,  and  the  "  District  Surveyor"  was  to  carry  out  the 
directions  of  the  Eeferees.  But  nothing  was  ever  done — 
Overseers,  District  Surveyors,  and  Eeferees,  all  neglected 
their  duties. 

Overcrowding  was  usually  at  its  worst  in  one-room 
tenements,  and  in  an  immense  number  of  cases  in  the 
metropolis  one  room  served  for  a  family  of  the  working 
or  of  the  labouring  classes.  It  was  their  bedroom,  their 
kitchen,  their  wash-house,  their  sitting-room,  their  eating- 
room,  and,  when  they  did  not  follow  any  occupation  else- 
where, it  was  their  workroom  and  their  shop.  In  this  one 
room  they  were  born,  and  lived,  and  slept,  and  died  amidst 
the  other  inmates. 

And  still  worse,  in  innumerable  cases,  more  than  one 
family  lived  in  one  room. 

When  this  one  room  was  in  a  badly  drained,  damp,  ill- 
constructed,  and  unventilated  house,  reeking  with  a  polluted 
atmosphere,  and  that  house  was  in  a  narrow  and  hemmed- 
in,  unventilated  "court"  or  "place"  or  "alley" — as  an 
immense  number  of  them  were — the  maximum  of  evil 
consequences  was  attained. 

The  evils  of  overcrowding  cannot  be  summed  up  in  a 
phrase,  nor  be  realised  by  the  description,  however  graphic, 
of  instance  upon  instance.  The  consequences  to  the  in- 
dividual living  in  an  overcrowded  room  or  dwelling  were 
always  disastrous,  and,  through  the  disastrous  consequences 
to  great  masses  of  individuals,  the  whole  community  was 
affected  in  varying  degree. 

Physically,  mentally,  and  morally,  the  overcrowded  people 
suffered.  Not  a  disease,  not  a  human  ill  which  flesh  is  heir 
to,  but  was  nurtured  and  rendered  more  potent  in  the  human 
hothouse  of  the  overcrowded  room  ;  and  the  ensuing  ill- 
health  and  diseases  not  alone  doubled  the  death  rate,  but 
increased  from  ten  to  twenty-fold,  at  least,  the  number  of 
victims  of  disease  of  one  sort  or  another — diseases  dealing 
rapid  death,  or  slowly  but  surely  sapping  human  strength 
and  vitality. 


32        THE    SANITARY    EVOLUTION 

In  the  report  of  the  London  Fever  Hospital  for  1845 
a  certain  overcrowded  room  in  the  neighbourhood  was 
described — a  room  which  was  filled  to  excess  every  night, 
sometimes  from  90  to  100  men  being  in  it ;  a  room  33  feet 
long,  20  feet  wide,  and  7  feet  high.  From  that  one  room 
alone  no  fewer  than  130  persons  affected  with  fever  were 
received  into  the  hospital  in  the  course  of  the  year,* 

One,  whose  very  close  experience  of  the  conditions  of  life 
and  circumstances  of  the  poorer  classes  of  London  at  the 
time  of  the  cholera  epidemic  of  1848-9  entitled  him  to  speak 
with  special  authority  on  the  subject,  thus  summed  up  his 
views  and  conclusions  : — 

*'  The  members  of  the  medical  profession,  in  the  presence 
of  these  physical  evils,  when  they  are,  as  so  often  happens, 
concentrated,  find  their  science  all  but  powerless ;  the 
minister  of  religion  turns  from  these  densely  crowded  and 
foul  localities  almost  without  hope ;  whilst  the  adminis- 
trators of  the  law,  especially  the  chaplains  and  governors 
of  prisons,  see  that  crime  of  every  complexion  is  most  rife 
where  material  degradation  is  most  profound."! 

And  he  quoted  from  the  report  of  the  Governors  of  the 
Houses  of  Correction  at  Coldbath  Fields  and  Westminster 
the  following  passage  : — 

"  The  crowning  cause  of  crime  in  the  metropolis  is,  in  my 
opinion,  to  be  found  in  the  shocking  state  of  the  habitations 
of  the  poor,  their  confined  and  foetid  localities,  and  the  con- 
sequent necessity  for  consigning  children  to  the  streets  for 
requisite  air  and  exercise.  These  causes  combine  to  produce 
a  state  of  frightful  demoralisation.  The  absence  of  cleanli- 
ness, of  decency,  of  all  decorum — the  disregard  of  any 
needful  separation  of  the  sexes — the  polluting  language  and 
the  scenes  of  profligacy  hourly  occurring,  all  tend  to  foster 
idleness  and  vicious  abandonment.  Here  I  beg  emphati- 
cally to  record  my  conviction  that  this  constitutes  the 
monster  mischief." 

And  then  he  himself  adds  : — 

"If  to  considerations  like  these  regarding  the  moral  and 

*  See  Hansard,  vol,  cxv.  1851  (Lord  Ashley's  speech). 
I  P.P.  1850,  vol.  xxi.  p.  179  (Dr.  Grainger). 


OF   LONDON  33 

religious  aspect  of  this  great  question,  be  added  those  sug- 
gested by  the  indescribable  physical  sufferings  inflicted  on 
the  labouring  classes  by  the  existing  state  of  the  public 
health  in  the  metropolis,  the  conviction  must  of  necessity 
follow,  that  the  time  is  come  when  efforts  in  some  degree 
commensurate  with  these  great  and  pervading  evils  can  no 
longer  with  safety  be  deferred."* 

This  opinion  was  expressed  three  years  after  the  Royal 
Commissioners  of  1847  had  said  in  their  report : — 

"There  appears  to  be  no  available  (legal)  means  for  the 
immediate  prevention  of  overcrowding ;  all  we  can  do  is 
to  point  it  out  as  a  source  of  evil  to  be  dealt  with  here- 
after." 

One  gets  a  clue  to  the  unceasing  insanitary  condition  of 
the  greater  part  of  London  and  to  the  inhuman  conduct  of 
so  many  tenement  house-owners  when  one  realises  that 
there  was  no  legal  punishment  whatever  for  the  perpetra- 
tion and  perpetuation  of  the  insanitary  abominations,  no 
matter  how  noxious  or  dangerous  they  were,  nor  how 
rapidly  or  directly  they  led  to  disease  or  death.  An  order 
to  abate  a  nuisance  (which  usually  was  not  obeyed)  appears 
to  have  been  the  only  penalty,  and  it  was  only  obtainable  at 
great  trouble  and  after  great  delays ;  and,  even  if  obtained 
and  the  nuisance  abated,  there  was  nothing  to  prevent  the 
offender  at  once  starting  the  nuisance  again.  Offences  of 
the  most  heinous  description — amounting  morally  to  de- 
liberate murder — were  perpetrated  with  absolute  impunity. 
Houses  which  were  scarcely  ever  free  from  fever  cases  were 
allowed  to  continue  year  after  year  levying  their  heavy  death 
tax  from  the  unfortunate  inhabitants. 

In  Whitechapel  one  house,  inhabited  by  twelve  or  fourteen 
families,  was  mentioned  as  scarcely  free  from  fever  cases  for 
as  many  years. 

"It  is  also  a  fearful  fact  that  in  almost  every  instance 
where  patients  die  from  fever,  or  are  removed  to  the  hospital 
or  workhouse,  their  rooms  are  let  as  soon  as  possible  to  new 
tenants,  and  no  precautions  used,  or  warning  given  ;  and  in 
some  houses,  perfect  hotbeds  of  fever  probably,  where  a 
-  P.P.  1850,  vol.  xxi. 
4 


34         THE   SANITARY   EVOLUTION 

patient  dies  or  is  removed,  the  first  new-comer  is  put  into 
the  sick  man's  bed." 

Sanitary  improvement  was  almost  a  hopeless  task. 
There  was  a  dead  weight  of  opposition  to  it  in  the  ignor- 
ance and  recklessness  and  indifference  of  the  poorer 
classes,  the  very  hopelessness  of  being  able  to  improve 
their  condition.  And  there  was  an  active  and  bitter 
opposition  from  those  house-owners  or  lessees  who  for 
their  own  financial  profit  exploited  the  poorer  classes. 

"  There  is  one  house  in  Spitalfields,"  said  Dr.  Lynch, 
"  which  has  been  the  constant  habitation  of  fever  for  fifteen 
years.  I  have  enforced  upon  the  landlord  the  necessity  of 
cleansing  and  lime-washing  it,  but  it  has  never  been  done ! ! 
.  .  .  There  are  many  landlords  with  whom  nothing  but 
immediate  interest  has  any  effect."  *" 

The  favourite  principle  that  an  Englishman's  house  was 
his  castle  was  used  as  a  defence  against  any  suggestion 
that  the  malpractices  committed  therein  should  be  curbed. 

Others  argued,  "  I  am  entitled  to  do  what  I  like  with 
my  own." 

**  We  everywhere  find  people  ready  to  declare  in  respect 
to  every  evil :  There  is  not  any  law  that  could  compel 
its  removal,  the  place  complained  of  being  private  pro- 
perty." 

All  sorts  of  far-fetched  and  strained  arguments  were 
devised  by  them  in  the  efforts  to  evade  responsibility  for 
the  infamous  condition  of  their  property,  and  to  defend 
and  justify  inaction. 

Fortunately  some  voices  began  to  be  raised  as  to  the 
persons  upon  whom  both  equitably  and  morally  the 
responsibility  lay  of  improving  the  condition  of  things. 

"  I  would  suggest,"  said  a  voice  in  1837,  "  the  idea  of  the 
landlords  of  many  of  the  wretched  filthy  tenements  being 
held  responsible  for  their  being  tenantable,  healthy,  and 
cleanly." 

And  the  Commissioners  in  1844  reported  : — 

"  There  are  some  points  on  which  the  public  safety 
demands  the  exercise  of  a  power  on  the  part  of  a  pubUc 

''■'■  Dr.  T.  Lynch,  Medical  Officer  of  West  London  Union  (Holborn). 


OF   LONDON  35 

authority  to  compel  attention  to  the  internal  condition  of 
houses  so  as  to  prevent  their  continuance  in  such  a  filthy 
and  unwholesome  state  as  to  endanger  the  health  of  the 
public." 

And  they  recommended  that : — 

"  On  complaint  of  the  parish,  medical,  or  other  authorised 
officer,  that  any  house  or  premises  are  in  such  a  filthy  and 
unwholesome  state  as  to  endanger  the  health  of  the  public, 
the  local  authority  have  power  to  require  the  landlord  to 
cleanse  it  properly  without  delay." 

But  ideas  or  recommendations  were  alike  ignored  by  the 
Government  and  Parliament,  and  several  years  were  to  pass 
before  any  legislation  was  attempted  which  would  make 
owners  responsible  for  their  misdeeds  in  matters  affecting 
the  public  health,  and  would  subject  them  to  penalties 
for  their  misconduct. 

There  were  many  other  causes  contributing  largely  to  the 
insanitary  condition  of  the  people  of  the  metropolis,  pro- 
minent, if  not  most  deleterious,  amongst  them  being  the 
widely-prevalent  practice  of  interring  the  dead  in  the 
already  overcrowded  churchyards  or  burial  grounds  in  the 
midst  of  the  most  densely  populated  districts  of  London — 
a  practice  resulting  in  "  the  slaughter  of  the  living  by  the 
dead." 

Burial  grounds  long  since  utilised  to  their  utmost  for  the 
disposal  of  the  dead  were  utilised  over  and  over  again  for 
graves  which  could  only  be  dug  in  the  debris  of  human 
remains,  until  the  soil  reeked  with  human  decomposition ; 
the  surrounding  atmosphere  was  polluted  by  the  horrible 
process,  and  they  became  monstrous  foci  of  infection. 

How  extensive  this  evil  was  may  be  realised  from 
figures  given  by  Mr.  Chadwick  in  a  report  to  the 
Government : — 

"In  the  metropolis,  on  spaces  of  ground  which  do  not 
exceed  203  acres,  closely  surrounded  by  the  abodes  of  the 
living,  layer  upon  layer,  each  consisting  of  a  population 
numerically  equivalent  to  a  large  army  of  20,000  adults, 
and  nearly  30,000  youths  and  children,  is  every  year  im- 
perfectly interred.     Within  the  period  of  the  existence  of 


36         THE   SANITARY  EVOLUTION 

the  present  generation  upwards  of  a  million  of  dead  must 
have  been  interred  in  those  same  spaces." 

And  he  asserted  that : — 

"  The  emanations  from  human  remains  are  of  a  nature 
to  produce  fatal  disease,  and  to  depress  the  general  health 
of  whoever  is  exposed  to  them ;  and  interments  in  the 
vaults  of  churches,  or  in  graveyards  surrounded  by  inhabited 
houses,  contribute  to  the  mass  of  atmospheric  and  other 
impurities  by  which  the  general  health  and  average  duration 
of  life  of  the  inhabitants  is  diminished." 

Too  horribly  gruesome  and  revolting  are  the  descriptions  of 
these  graveyards — places  where  the  dead  were,  so  to  speak, 
shovelled  in  as  the  filth  of  the  streets  is  into  scavengers' 
carts,  and  which  "gave  forth  the  mephitical  effluvia  of 
death " ;  such  a  one  as  that  in  Eussell  Court,  off  Drury 
Lane,  where  the  whole  ground,  which  by  constant  burials 
had  been  raised  several  feet,  was  "  a  mass  of  corruption  " 
which  polluted  the  air  the  living  had  to  breathe,  and 
poisoned  the  well  water  which  in  default  of  other  they 
often  had  to  drink.  Or  those  in  Eotherhithe,  where  "  the 
interments  were  so  numerous  that  the  half-decomposed 
organic  matter  was  often  thrown  up  to  make  way  for 
fresh  graves,  exposing  sights  disgusting,  and  emitting  foul 
effluvia." 

The  master  hand  of  Dickens  has  given  a  more  vivid 
picture  of  one  of  these  places  than  any  to  be  found  in 
Parliamentary  Blue  Books  : — 

''A  hemmed-in  churchyard,  pestiferous  and  obscene, 
whence  malignant  diseases  are  communicated  to  the  bodies 
of  our  dear  brothers  and  sisters  who  have  not  departed.  .  .  . 
Into  a  beastly  scrap  of  ground,  which  a  Turk  would  reject 
as  a  savage  abomination,  and  a  Caffre  would  shudder  at, 
they  bring  our  dear  brother  here  departed  to  receive 
Christian  burial.  With  houses  looking  on  on  every  side, 
save  where  a  reeking  little  tunnel  of  a  court  gives  access  to 
the  iron  gate — with  every  villainy  of  life  in  action  close  on 
death,  and  every  poisonous  element  of  death  in  action  close 
on  life — here  they  lower  our  dear  brother  down  a  foot  or 
two ;  here  sow  him  in  corruption,  to  be  raised  in  corrup- 


OF   LONDON  37 

tion  ;  an  avenging  ghost  at  many  a  sick  bedside  ;  a  shame- 
ful testimony  to  future  ages,  how  civilisation  and  barbarism 
walked  this  boastful  island  together." 

Interments  in  the  vaults  of  the  churches — then  a  common 
practice — were  also  a  fruitful  source  of  sickness  and  death. 
It  mattered  not  whether  or  not  the  bodies  were  hermetically 
closed  in  leaden  coffins,  for  "  sooner  or  later  every  corpse 
buried  in  the  vault  of  a  church  spreads  the  products  of 
decomposition  through  the  air  which  is  breathed,  as  readily 
as  if  it  had  never  been  enclosed " ;  thus  adding  to  the 
contamination  of  the  atmosphere. 

The  death  roll  from  this  horrible  condition  of  things 
cannot  be  gauged,  but  those  most  conversant  with  the 
matter  were  firmly  convinced  that  it  was  the  direct  cause  of 
fevers,  and  of  all  kinds  of  sickness  among  the  people. 

Pollution  of  the  atmosphere  which  people  had  to  breathe, 
and  upon  the  purity  of  which  the  public  health  in  varying 
degree  depended,  was  caused  also  by  various  businesses  and 
processes  of  manufacture  grouped  together  under  the 
name  of  "noxious  trades,"  such  as  bone-boilers,  india- 
rubber  manufacturers,  gut-scrapers,  manure  manufacturers, 
slaughterers  of  cattle,  and  many  others. 

In  1849*  a  description  had  been  given  of  a  street  in 
Shoreditch  which  shows  to  what  extent  this  evil  had 
attained  : — 

"It  is  impossible  to  believe,  passing  through  this  main 
street,  that  so  great  a  number  of  pigsties,  bone-boileries, 
dog-and-cat's  meat  manufactories,  and  tallow-melting  estab- 
lishments, on  a  large  scale  .  .  .  should  exist  in  a  densely- 
crowded  and  closely-built  locality.  The  noxious  trades  and 
occupations  which  so  greatly  abound  here  exerted  a  most 
deleterious  influence  upon  the  health  of  the  inhabitants." 

Parliament,  in  1844,  had  enacted  with  regard  to  several 
of  these  that  it  should  not  be  lawful  for  any  person  to 
establish  any  such  business  at  a  less  distance  than  40  feet 
from  the  public  way,  or  than  50  feet  from  any  dwelling- 
house  ;  and  that  it  should  not  be  lawful  to  erect  a  dwelling- 
house  within  50  feet  of  such  businesses. 
*  P.P.  1849-50,  vol.  xxi. 


38         THE   SANITARY  EVOLUTION 

But  these  legislative  restraints  were  utterly  inadequate  as 
any  sort  of  check  upon  the  evil ;  for,  even  if  a  nuisance 
v^ere  abated,  there  was  no  law  to  prevent  its  repetition,  and 
so  the  evil  promptly  re-appeared.  The  stenches  did  not 
limit  their  sphere  of  action  by  feet,  but  distributed  their 
abominations  over  large  areas ;  and  the  manufacturers  cared 
not  what  nuisances  they  subjected  people  to,  nor  how  far 
the  horrid  smells  were  wafted  by  the  winds,  so  long  as  they 
themselves  could  carry  on  a  profitable  business.  And  the 
intentions  of  Parliament  were  wholly  frustrated  by  the 
District  Surveyors,  who  were  charged  with  the  enforcement 
of  the  Act,  and  who  wholly  failed  in  their  duty. 

As  for  slaughter  houses,  until  1851  any  person  could 
start  one  who  pleased,  and  practically  where  he  pleased, 
subject  only  to  the  shadowy  restriction  of  the  common  law 
as  to  doing  anything  which  might  be  considered  a  nuisance. 

And  so  these  numerous  and  various  abominations,  mixed 
with  the  impurity  of  the  atmosphere  caused  by  the  masses 
of  smoke  emitted  from  the  chimneys  of  factories  and 
private  houses,  and  with  the  sickening  smell  from  the 
Thames,  spread  sickness  and  death  throughout  great 
portions  of  the  metropolis,  and  were  one  of  the  great 
causes  of  its  insanitary  condition. 


II 

Previous  to  the  fifth  decade  of  the  last  century  it  was 
only  very  rarely  that  the  prevalence  of  disease,  or  any 
subject  connected  with  the  health  of  the  community, 
received  recognition  by   Parliament. 

In  1840  the  Medical  Society  of  London,  in  a  petition  to 
Parliament,  called  attention  to  the  increase  of  smallpox, 
and  to  its  preventability  by  vaccination,  and  to  the  im- 
perfect means  of  vaccination  throughout  the  country. 

The  mortality  from  this — "  one  of  the  greatest  pests  that 
ever  afflicted  humanity  "* — was  very  great.  In  one  city  in 
the  south  of  England  no  less  than  500  persons  bad  died  of 

-  Hansard,  1840,  vol.  liii.  p.  1110. 


OF   LONDON  39 

it  in  one  year.     In  London  in  1839  upwards  of  1,000  had 
died  of  it. 

And  Parliament,  after  an  unusual  amount  of  discussion, 
passed  an  Act  *  for  extending  the  practice  of  vaccination, 
and  enacted  that  Boards  of  Guardians  might  contract  with 
their  Medical  Officers  or  other  medical  practitioners  "for 
the  vaccination  of  all  persons  resident  in  their  Union 
or  Parish." 

And  at  the  same  time  "inoculation  "  or  "otherwise  pro- 
ducing smallpox"  was  made  penal — to  the  extent  of  one 
month's  imprisonment. 

In  1846  there  was  a  sudden  display  of  Parliamentary- 
energy  in  health  matters. 

The  total  want  of  baths  and  wash-houses  for  the  poorer 
classes  of  the  people  in  the  towns  was  brought  under  the 
notice  of  the  Legislature,  and,  as  it  was  deemed  "  desirable 
for  the  healthj  comfort,  and  welfare  of  the  inhabitants  of 
towns,  &c.,  to  encourage  the  establishment  therein  of 
baths,  wash-houses,  and  open  bathing  places,"  an  Act 
was  passed  giving  power  to  the  Parochial  Authorities  to 
establish  such  institutions  and  to  borrow  money  for  the 
purpose,  f 

Their  provision  would  have  tended  to  an  increased  degree 
of  cleanliness  among  the  people,  and  consequently  an 
improved  sanitary  condition,  but  it  was  long  before  many 
of  these  institutions  were  established,  the  local  authorities 
being  slow  in  availing  themselves  of  the  facilities  thus 
offered,  and  this  piece  of  legislation — like  every  other  of 
the  sort — being  purely  permissive  or  facilitatory. 

And  in  the  same  year  Parliament  so  far  awakened  to  the 
fact  that  certain  causes  of  disease  were  removable,  that  in  a 
preamble  to  an  Act|  it  acknowledged  that  it  was  "highly 
expedient  for  the  purposes  of  preserving  the  health  of  Her 
Majesty's  subjects  that  better  provision  should  be  made 
for  the  removal  of  certain  nuisances  likely  to  promote  or 
increase  disease." 

*  3  and  4  Vic.  cap.  29. 

t  Expenses  to  be  charged  upon  Borough  Fund,  and  receipts  to  be 
paid  into  same.  |  9  and  10  Vic.  cap.  96. 


40         THE   SANITARY   EVOLUTION 

The  better  provision  made  by  the  Act  did  not  amount  to 
much.  There  were  two  forms  of  insanitary  evil  to  be  com- 
bated :  one  the  chronic  insanitary  condition  of  the  masses  of 
the  people,  the  other  the  invasion  of  the  country  by  some 
exceptional  or  unusual  epidemic  disease. 

As  to  the  former,  authority  was  given  to  certain  public 
officers,  on  receipt  of  a  certificate  of  two  medical  men,  to 
complain  of  the  existence  of  certain  nuisances.  The  Justices 
before  whom  the  case  was  heard  might  order  the  abatement 
of  the  nuisance ;  and  if  the  order  were  not  obeyed,  the 
parties  complaining  might  enter  upon  the  necessary  cleans- 
ing of  such  dwelling,  and  the  cost  of  the  same  might  be 
imposed  on  the  owner  or  occupier. 

In  London,  the  power  of  complaint  was  vested  in  the 
officers  of  those  petty  local  bodies  which  have  already  been 
described,  and,  in  their  default,  in  the  Boards  of  Guardians. 

Ludicrous,  truly,  was  the  idea  that  the  countless  thousands 
of  nuisances  existing  in  London  could  be  remedied,  or  even 
temporarily  abated,  by  so  cumbrous,  dilatory,  and  com- 
plicated a  procedure  as  the  complaint  of  an  individual 
backed  by  the  certificate  (which  would  have  to  be  paid  for) 
of  two  doctors  to  the  officer  of  a  more  or  less  hostile  and 
self-interested  local  body,  who  might  or  might  not  bring  the 
complaint  before  the  Justices,  whose  decision,  even  if  it 
were  in  favour  of  the  complainant,  could  only  effect  a 
reform  so  far  as  the  precise  nuisance  complained  of  was 
concerned,  and  that  only  temporarily,  for  were  the  nuisance 
renewed  the  whole  procedure  would  have  to  be  gone  through 
again. 

Yet  this  was  the  "better  provision"  propounded  and 
enacted  by  Parliament  in  1846  for  the  regeneration  of  the 
sanitary  condition  of  the  great  masses  of  the  people  of 
London.  Nor  was  it  even  intended  to  be  permanently 
available,  for  the  Act  was  only  to  be  in  force  for  two 
years. 

The  dreadful  nemesis  for  such  dense  inappreciation  by 
Parliament  of  its  obligations  to  the  community  was,  un- 
fortunately, soon  to  fall  heavily  upon  the  unhappy  people  of 
the  metropolis.     Thousands  of  miles  away  in  Hindoostan, 


OF   LONDON  41 

Asiatic  cholera  of  a  deadly  type  had  been  playing  havoc 
with  the  people  of  the  country.  Thence  it  was  slowly  but 
steadily  moving  westward  ;  so  much  so  that  the  desirability 
of  making  some  preparations  for  defence  against  its  invasion 
of  England  became  apparent ;  and  in  1847  a  Eoyal  Com- 
mission was  appointed  to  "  inquire  whether  any,  and  what, 
special  means  might  be  requisite  for  the  improvement  of  the 
health  of  the  metropolis,  with  regard  more  especially  to  the 
better  house,  street,  and  land  drainage,  .  .  .  the  better 
supply  of  water  for  domestic  use,  &c.,  &c.,  &c." 

One  important  conclusion  was  at  once  forced  upon  the 
Commissioners,  namely,  that  the  great  and  vital  task  of 
making  adequate  provision  for  the  sewerage  of  London  could 
not  be  accomplished  so  long  as  it  was  entrusted  to  several 
bodies,  each  with  a  district  of  its  own. 

"  Everything,"  they  said,  "  pointed  to  the  necessity  of 
operations  being  superintended  by  one  competent  body ' ' ; 
and  they  declared  that  it  was  expedient  that  a  Commission 
for  the  entire  drainage  of  the  whole  of  the  metropolis  should 
be  appointed  with  a  special  view  to  such  measures,  and 
with  aid  to  carry  them  out. 

This  report  was  followed  in  the  ensuing  year  (1848)  by  an 
Act  of  Parliament*  abolishing  the  various  Commissions  of 
Sewers  (except  those  of  the  City),  and  creating  in  their 
stead  one  executive  body  whose  members  were  to  be  ap- 
pointed by  the  Crown. 

Wide  powers  were  given  to  this  central  body:  among 
them  that  no  house  was  to  be  built  or  re-built  without 
proper  drains,  and  without  proper  sanitary  conveniences, 
and  that  if  houses  built  before  the  passing  of  the  Act  were 
not  properly  drained,  the  Commissioners  might  order  the 
work  to  be  done. 

The  Metropolitan  Commissioners  of  Sewers  were  duly 
appointed,  and  they  divided  the  area  over  which  they  had 
jurisdiction  into  seven  separate  sub-districts,  with  a  Com- 
mission for  each. 

The  creation  of  this  body  constitutes  a  great  landmark  in 
the  sanitary  evolution  of  London,  for  it  was  the  first  recog- 
*  11  and  12  Vic.  cap.  112. 


42         THE   SANITARY  EVOLUTION 

nition  by  Parliament  of  the  great  principle  of  the  unity 
of  London ;  of  the  necessity — at  least  so  far  as  regarded 
one  matter — for  one  central  governing  authority  for  the 
numerous  populations,  and  bodies,  and  districts  which  were 
becoming  welded  together  into  one  mighty  town  and  one 
vast  community. 

It  is  true,  the  recognition  extended  only  to  this  one 
matter,  and  that  the  Central  Board  was  to  be  a  Board 
nominated  by  the  Crown,  and  without  any  vestige  of  repre- 
sentation upon  it,  but  none  the  less  was  it  a  forward  step 
towards  a  sounder  and  wiser  system  of  government  than 
that  which  had  hitherto  prevailed. 

That  the  new  body  failed  to  prove  equal  to  the  task 
imposed  upon  it  was  due  as  well  to  the  constituent  members 
thereof  as  to  the  imperfections  of  the  machinery  devised  by 
the  Act.  Its  failure,  however,  in  no  way  controverted  the 
soundness  of  the  great  principle  thus,  for  the  first  time, 
recognised  by  Parliament. 

The  evidence  given  before  the  Koyal  Commissioners 
brought  into  view  the  enormous  area  of  filth  and  limitless 
insanitation  in  London :  it  displayed  some  of  the  principal 
sources  of  the  excessive  amount  of  disease  and  premature 
mortality ;  and  to  some  extent  it  elucidated  the  principles 
and  demonstrated  the  practicability  of  large  measures  of 
prevention.  And  it  also  disclosed  the  regrettable  fact  that 
since  the  epidemic  of  cholera  in  1832  there  had  been  little 
or  no  improvement  in  the  sanitary  condition  of  many  parts 
of  the  metropolis — indeed,  in  most  parts  of  it  the  evils  were 
wider  spread  and  acuter  in  form,  whilst,  owing  to  the  in- 
crease of  population,  the  numbers  affected  were  vastly  larger. 

All  the  while  the  Commissioners  were  sitting,  the  evil 
seeds  of  insanitation  were  producing  a  tremendous  crop, 
and  events  actually  occurring  at  the  moment  emphasised 
the  crying  need  for  some  means  of  grappling  with  the  in- 
tolerable existing  evils.  The  whole  class  of  zymotic  diseases 
— diseases  which  constitute  the  true  gauge  of  the  healthiness 
or  unhealthiness  of  a  community — received  a  rapid  and 
immense  development.*  From  9,600  deaths  from  such 
'■■  P.P.  1850,  vol.  xxi.  p.  4. 


OF  LONDON  43 

diseases  in  1846,  the  number  increased  to  14,000  in  1847 ; 
and  in  this  latter  year  the  metropolis  was  visited  by  two 
epidemics  which  rendered  the  mortality  of  the  last  quarter 
of  the  year  higher  than  that  of  any  other  quarter  of  any 
year  since  the  new  system  of  registration  of  deaths  had  been 
commenced.*  Typhus  fever  produced  fourfold  its  ordinary 
mortality — other  diseases  showed  a  similar  increase — and 
towards  the  end  of  November  influenza  broke  out  and  spread 
so  suddenly  and  to  such  an  extent  that  within  five  or  six 
weeks  it  attacked  no  less  than  500,000  persons  out  of 
2,100,000 — the  then  population  of  London.  Altogether  the 
excess  of  mortality  in  1847  over  1845  was  very  close  upon 
50,000  persons. 

The  attitude  of  Parliament  and  of  successive  Governments 
about  this  period,  as  regarded  the  insanitary  condition  of  the 
masses  of  the  inhabitants  of  London,  is  now  almost  incom- 
prehensible. -The  plea  of  ignorance  cannot  be  urged  in 
exculpation,  for  their  own  Blue  Books  and  official  returns 
were  there  to  inform  them.  Moreover,  the  existence  of 
similar  evils  throughout  the  country,  where  they  were  on  a 
very  much  smaller  scale,  was  recognised  both  by  the 
Government   and   Parliament. 

Lord  Morpeth,  a  member  of  the  Cabinet,  speaking  in 
1848  in  the  House  of  Commons,  said  f  : — 

"  It  is  far  from  any  temporary  evil,  any  transient  visitant, 
against  which  our  legislation  is  now  called  upon  to  provide. 
It  is  the  abiding  host  of  disease,  the  endemic  and  not  the 
epidemic  pestilence,  the  permanent  overhanging  mist  of 
infection,  the  annual  slaughter  doubling  in  its  ravages  our 
bloodiest  fields  of  conflict,  that  we  are  now  summoned  to 
grapple  with." 

Yet  they  resolutely  shut  their  eyes  to  the  huge  mass  of 
misery  and  fearful  waste  of  life  which  was  going  on  at  their 
very  doors,  and  all  around  them.  This  was  proved  beyond 
controversy  by  their  action  in  1848.  In  that  year  the 
Government  introduced  into  Parliament  a  measure  which 
was,  in  effect,  a  comprehensive  sanitary  code,  and  which,  if 

*  Metropolitan  Sanitary  Commission,  1848,  2nd  Report, 
f  Hansard,  1848,  vol.  xcvi.  p.  392. 


44         THE   SANITARY  EVOLUTION 

duly  enforced,  was  capable  of  conferring  vast  benefit  on  the 
community  at  large. 

Describing  the  provisions  of  the  Bill,  Lord  Morpeth 
said  : — 

"  It  will  be  imperative  upon  the  local  administrative 
bodies  to  hold  meetings  for  the  transaction  of  business  ;  to 
appoint  a  surveyor ;  to  appoint  an  inspector  of  nuisances ; 
to  make  public  sewers ;  to  substitute  sufficient  sewers  in 
case  old  ones  be  discontinued ;  to  require  owners  or 
occupiers  to  provide  house-drains;  to  cleanse  and  water 
streets ;  to  appoint  or  contract  with  scavengers  to  cleanse, 
cover,  or  fill  up  offensive  ditches  ;  ...  to  provide  sufficient 
supply  of  water  for  drainage,  public  and  private,  and  for 
domestic  use. 

"  The  permissive  powers  to  be  granted  to  the  local  admin- 
istrative bodies  .  .  .  include  the  power  to  make  house- 
drains  upon  default  of  owner  or  occupier,  to  make  bye-laws 
with  respect  to  the  removal  of  filth,  to  whitewash  and  purify 
houses  after  notice  ...  to  require  that  certain-;  furnaces  be 
made  to  consume  their  own  smoke  ...  to  provide  places 
for  public  recreation,  to  purchase  and  maintain  water- 
works." 

The  Bill,  which  was  duly  passed  and  became  an  Act,  in 
fact  provided  means  for  coping  with  many  of  the  sorest 
dangers,  it  curbed  some  of  the  powers  for  evil  which  so 
many  persons  had  such  little  scruple  in  exercising ;  it 
provided  methods  for  bringing  to  punishment  at  least  some 
of  the  evil-doers  who  hitherto  had  gone  scot  free;  and  it 
held  out  some  prospects  of  the  diminution  of  the  huge 
death  rate  and  still  huger  sick  rate. 

Though  a  somewhat  similar  Bill,  introduced  in  1847,  and 
which  was  withdrawn,  had  included  the  metropolis,  this 
Act  did  not  apply  to  the  metropolis.  Its  application  was 
limited  to  the  rest  of  England  and  Wales.  London — the 
capital  of  the  kingdom — was,  it  was  said,  "reserved  for  a 
separate  Bill."  "The  separate  Bill,"  however,  did  not 
make  its  appearance.  The  subtle,  all-pervading  influence 
of  vested  rights  was  too  powerful  for  any  such  reform  to  be 


OF   LONDON  45 

attempted.*  And  so,  the  Government  and  Parliament, 
deliberately  excluding  the  metropolis  from  this  beneficial 
legislation,  left  untouched  the  centre  and  main  emporium  of 
disease,  and  left  the  people  of  London  exposed  on  all  sides 
to  the  merciless  onslaught  of  the  direst  diseases  which  can 
afflict  mankind. 

Cholera,  however,  the  only  power  able  to  awe  the 
Government,  was  now  so  close  at  hand  that  some  special 
provision  had  to  be  devised  for  the  protection  of  the  public 
health.  Parliament,  this  time  not  excluding  the  metro- 
polis, re-enacted  the  trumpery  "Nuisance  Kemoval  and 
Diseases  Prevention  Act "  of  1846,  with  some  slight  enlarge- 
ments, and  one  important  addition,  namely,  authority  for 
the  appointment  by  the  Privy  Council  of  a  General 
Board  of  Health,  which  might  issue  directions  and  regu- 
lations for  the  prevention  of  epidemic  and  contagious 
disease. 

Upon  this  slender  thread  Londoners  were  left  dependent 
for  such  measures  as  might  afford  them  some  protection 
against  the  impending  epidemic.  No  other  help  was  at 
hand.  Nor  was  there  much  time  for  help  to  be  organised 
or  preparations  made,  for  cholera  had  reached  Egypt  and 
Constantinople,  and  by  June,  1848,  had  crept  forward  to 
St.  Petersburg.  Isolated  suspicious  cases  occurred  in 
London  in  the  summer  of  1848,  f  then  an  undoubted  case 
in  Southwark  on  the  22nd  of  September,  and  then  more 
undoubted  cases,  and  the  disease  had  secured  a  footing. 
As  the  winter  approached  it  died  down  and  ceased,  having 
carried  off  some  468  victims. 

The  Privy  Council  had  appointed  a  General  Board  of 
Health,  and  early  in  November  the  Board  issued  regu- 
lations directing  the  Guardians  to  take  the  necessary 
measures  for  the  cleansing  of  houses,  the  abatement  of 
nuisances,  and  generally  for  the  removal  of  all  matters 
injurious  to  health.     To  direct  is  one  thing,  to  get  obeyed  is 

*  "  Vested  rights  in  crowded  houses,  deadly  stenches,  putrid  water, 
foggy  courts,  and  cesspools."  See  "Health  by  Act  of  Parliament," 
Household  Words,  1850,  vol.  i. 

f  P.P.  1850,  vol.  xxi.  p.  42. 


46         THE   SANITARY   EVOLUTION 

another,  and  with  some  few  exceptions,  these  directions 
were  disregarded.     Partly,  the  fault  was  Parliament's. 

The  Act,  by  naming  various  local  authorities,  had  created 
a  divided  power,  and  consequently  a  divided  responsibility, 
which  resulted  in  inaction,  neglect,  delay,  and  loss  of  life ; 
and  though  the  General  Board  of  Health  might  require  the 
Boards  of  Guardians  and  other  local  bodies  to  put  the 
regulations  into  force,  they  had  no  power  to  compel  them 
to  do  so,  and  in  default  of  such  power  the  General  Board  of 
Health  was  almost  helpless. 

The  cessation  of  the  disease  proved  to  be  only  temporary. 
Scarcely  was  1849  entered  on  than  the  epidemic  broke 
out  again,  steadily  gathering  momentum  as  the  summer 
went  on. 

In  Bethnal  Green  there  was  an  outbreak  in  the  night — 
sudden  and  panic-striking — "consternation  and  alarm  were 
spread  abroad — the  hurried  passing  and  re-passing  of 
messengers,  and  the  wailing  of  relatives,  filled  the  streets 
with  confusion  and  woe,  and  impressed  all  with  a  deep  sense 
of  awful  calamity." 

And  the  epidemic  spread  and  spread  until  in  one  week  in 
September  (1849)  the  deaths  from  it  amounted  to  2,026.* 

Were  the  full  facts  known,  the  mortality  was  doubtless 
far  higher. 

And  then  the  epidemic  began  rapidly  to  abate,  and  by  the 
end  of  the  year  had  ceased,  having  slain  some  14,600  victims.! 

Numerous  and  important  were  the  lessons  inculcated  by 
this  disastrous  epidemic.  It  afforded  the  most  definite 
evidence  that  had  yet  been  obtained  of  the  influence  upon 
health  of  local  conditions  and  pre-disposing  causes. 

It  showed  that  in  the  most  violent  and  extensive  out- 
breaks of  the  pestilence  its  virulence  was  invariably  confined 
to  circumscribed  localities.  It  showed  that  the  habitat  of 
cholera  and  the  habitat  of  fever  were  one  and  the  same. 

*  P.P.  1850,  vol.  xxi.  p.  110. 

f  In  London  in  1832-3  (population  1,682,000),  the  attacks  were  14,144, 
the  deaths  were  6,729.  1848-9  (population  2,206,000),  the  attacks  were 
about  30,000,  the  deaths  about  14,600,  so  that  in  the  last  epidemic  the 
deaths  were  more  numerous  than  the  attacks  in  1832-3,  whilst  the  attacks 
were  more  than  double. 


OF  LONDON  47 

Deaths  from  cholera  took  place  in  the  very  same  streets, 
and  houses,  and  rooms,  which  had  been  again  and  again 
visited  by  fever ;  and  rooms  were  pointed  out  where  some 
of  the  poor  people  had  recovered  from  fever  in  the  spring  to 
fall  victims  to  cholera  in  the  summer. 

As  it  was  tersely  summed  up  by  one  of  the  most  active 
and  capable  medical  officers  of  the  Board  of  Health : — 

"We  find  but  one  cause  of  so  much  sickness,  suffering 
and  death — the  prolific  parent  of  all  this  diversified  offspring 
—'filth.' 

"It  is  in  filth,  in  decomposing  organic  matter,  that  the 
main  causes  of  epidemic  diseases  are  to  be  sought  out — 
filthy  alleys,  filthy  houses,  filthy  air,  filthy  water,  and  filthy 
persons." 

What  the  General  Board  of  Health  could  do,  it  did,  as 
was  indeed  to  be  expected  from  such  sanitary  enthusiasts 
as  Lord  Ashley,  Dr.  Southwood  Smith,  and  Mr,  Edwin 
Chadwick,  but  the  local  authorities  were  dilatory,  lukewarm, 
or  actually  hostile,  and  their  proceedings,  where  anything 
was  done,  were  altogether  inadequate  for  insuring  those 
prompt,  comprehensive,  and  vigorous  measures  so  urgently 
demanded  in  the  presence  of  a  great  and  destructive 
epidemic  such  as  malignant  cholera. 

The  system  of  house-to-house  visitation  was  essential 
for  the  discovery  and  checking  of  the  disease,  but,  wrote 
the  Board,  "  nothing  effective  was  done  or  attempted  in 
the  metropolis.  We  repeatedly  and  earnestly  urged  upon 
the  Boards  of  Guardians  the  importance  to  the  saving 
of  life  of  making  immediate  arrangements  for  special 
measures  of  prevention,  but  our  representations  were  made 
in  vain. 

"  The  local  authorities  could  not  be  induced  to  carry  into 
effect  the  preventive  measures  we  proposed." 

Several  unions  and  parishes,  among  whom  were  some  of 
the  most  wealthy  and  populous,  positively  refused  to  comply 
with  the  directions  of  the  Board. 

In  the  case  of  Bethnal  Green,  just  described,  the  Board 
issued  a  "  Special  Order."  But  even  under  these  urgent 
circumstances    "  the    Board    of   Guardians    appointed   no 


48         THE   SANITARY  EVOLUTION 

medical  officer  for  five  days,  they  provided  no  nurses,  they 
established  no  hospital,  they  opened  no  dispensary,  they 
appointed  one  inspector  of  nuisances  instead  of  two,  and 
they  made  no  provision  for  extensive  and  effectual  lime- 
washing," 

The  explanation  of  the  inaction  and  hostility  of  the  local 
authorities  lay  in  the  fact  that  the  various  measures  pre- 
scribed by  the  Act  interfered  with  private  interests,  and 
especially  with  interests  which  were  largely  represented  on 
the  Boards  of  Guardians.  Among  the  members  of  those 
boards  there  was  often  "an  antagonistic  power"  at  work 
which  prevented  proper  attention  being  paid  to  the  sanitary 
condition  of  the  localities  of  the  poor.  In  many  instances, 
owners  of  small  houses  and  cottage  property,  to  which  class 
of  dwellings  the  provisions  of  the  Act  more  particularly 
applied,  were  themselves  members  of  such  boards,  and 
when  this  was  not  the  case,  they  exerted  an  influence  not 
the  less  powerful  because  it  was  indirect.  This  interest 
often  conspired  to  impede  efficient  sanitary  measures.* 

Local  interests  also  operated,  the  apprehension  being  that 
if  active  and  really  efficient  measures  were  adopted  the  trade 
of  the  neighbourhood  would  suffer. 

In  one  instance — an  instructive  one — where  the  epidemic 
had  extensively  prevailed  among  the  poor,  its  existence  was 
denied,  and  house-visitation  resisted,  till,  after  considerable 
delay  and  loss  of  life,  a  number  of  shopkeepers  were  attacked 
by  the  disease,  and  then,  all  opposition  ceased. 

The  evidence  of  the  unfitness  of  the  local  authorities 
charged  with  the  administration  of  the  Act  for  the  duties 
imposed  upon  them  was  overwhelming.  The  unfortunate 
position  was  accentuated  and  intensified  by  the  fact  that 
the  General  Board  of  Health  had  no  power  either  of  com- 
pelling the  local  authorities  to  do  their  duty  or  of  itself 
acting  in  default  of  their  neglect ;  and  the  absence  of  this 
first  essential  of  effective  administration  hampered  and 
crippled  its  action. 

The  Board  summed  up  its  experience  of  this  great  visita- 
tion of  1848-9  :— 

*  Dr.  Grainger,  P.P.  1849-50,  vol.  xxi. 


OF   LONDON  49 

**  The  evidence  shows  that  where  combined  sanitary 
arrangements  have  been  carried  into  effect  the  outbreak  of 
the  pestilence  has  been  sometimes  averted ;  that  where  not 
prevented,  its  course  has  been  gradually  arrested. 

"  That  where  material  improvements  have  been  made  in 
the  condition  of  the  dwellings  of  the  labouring  classes,  there 
has  been  an  entire  exemption  from  the  disease,  and  where 
minor  improvements  were  made,  the  attacks  have  been  less 
severe  and  less  extensive. 

"  That  with  reference  to  the  measure  of  prevention,  the 
immunity  from  the  disease  has  been  in  proportion  to  the 
extent  to  which  those  measures  have  been  carried  into  effect 
systematically  and  promptly." 

By  the  end  of  the  year  the  epidemic  was  practically  over. 
And  then  the  usual  thing  took  place. 

It  is  described  a  few  months  later  by  Dr.  Grainger,  who 
wrote : — 

"In  many  of  the  most  densely  populated  districts  the 
inspectors  of  nuisances  have  been  dismissed,  the  cleansing 
operations  have  been  relaxed,  and  there  is  too  much  reason 
to  apprehend  that  the  courts  and  alleys  will  lapse  back  again 
into  their  accustomed  filth,  .  .  .  that  houses  proved  by  the 
evidence  of  medical  officers,  inspectors,  and  local  authorities 
to  be  unfit  for  human  habitation  will  long  continue  to 
remain  '  pest-houses,'  spreading  disease  around ;  and  that, 
in  the  midst  of  these  tolerated  and  accumulated  evils, 
the  industrious  classes  will  continue  as  heretofore  to 
be  decimated  by  fever,  or,  should  it  again  break  out,  by 
cholera."  * 


III 

The  "City"  of  London,  though  constituting  territorially 
and  by  population  but  a  small  portion  of  the  metropolis, 
affords  much  matter  of  deep  interest  in  connection  with  the 
sanitary  evolution  of  London,  totally  apart  from  those  great 
economic  forces  emanating  from  it  which  have  dominated 
the  whole  of  London  life. 

*  P.P.  1850,  vol.  xxi.  p.  147. 
5 


50         THE   SANITARY   EVOLUTION 

The  "  City"  differed  mainly,  as  has  already  been  pointed 
out,  from  "  greater  London  "  in  that  it  had  a  real  and  active 
governing  body  for  its  local  affairs,  and  that  that  body  was 
possessed  of  considerable  powers  for  dealing  with  the 
sanitary  condition  and  requirements  of  its  inhabitants. 
That  those  sanitary  powers  were  annually  delegated  to  a 
body  entitled  the  Commissioners  of  Sewers  in  no  way 
diminished  its  sanitary  authority  or  weakened  its  efficiency, 
for  that  body  was  practically  a  Committee  of  its  own,  and 
had  authority,  directly  or  indirectly,  over  nearly  every  one 
of  the  physical  conditions  which  were  likely  to  affect  the 
health  or  comfort  of  its  inhabitants. 

The  "City"  differed  also  in  that  it  was  able  to  obtain 
from  the  Government  and  Parliament  powers  which  neither 
Government  nor  Parliament  would  grant  to  "  greater 
London." 

It  differed  too  in  that  from  1848  onwards  it  was  in  bene- 
ficial enjoyment  of  the  services  of  a  Medical  Officer  of 
Health. 

But  in  many  respects  the  "  City  "  was  a  microcosm  of  the 
metropolis;  and  though  possessed  of  a  local  government, 
yet  was  it  cursed  with  evils  which  were  the  terrible  legacy 
left  it  by  the  ignorance,  indifference,  neglect,  incapacity,  or 
cupidity,  of  previous  generations. 

The  graphic  reports  of  its  Medical  Officer  of  Health — 
Dr.  John  Simon — have  left  us  a  most  vivid  and  valuable 
contemporary  picture  of  the  sanitary  condition  and  sur- 
roundings of  the  people  living  in  the  favoured  area 
about  the  middle  of  the  last  century,  and  they  disclose, 
in  no  hesitating  manner,  the  desperate  evils  prevalent 
therein. 

The  Thames,  "with  the  immeasurable  filth"  which 
polluted  it,  and  its  acres  of  mud  banks  saturated  with  the 
reeking  sewage  of  an  immense  population,  vitiated  the 
atmosphere  of  the  City,  just  as  it  did  that  of  other  parts  of 
London.  But  sewers  there  were  in  the  City,  of  one  sort  or 
another,  over  forty  miles  of  them,  and  some  of  the  filth  of 
the  City  was  carried  away,  at  least  into  the  river. 

House   drainage  into   the    sewers   was,   however,   either 


OF  LONDON  51 

lamentably  deficient  or  non-existent,  and  cesspools  abounded 
— abounded  so  freely  that  "parts  of  the  City  might  be 
described  as  having  a  cesspool-city  excavated  beneath  it." 

"It  requires,"  reported  Dr.  Simon  to  his  employers, 
"  little  medical  knowledge  to  understand  that  animals  will 
scarcely  thrive  in  an  atmosphere  of  their  own  decomposing 
excrements  ;  yet  such,  strictly  and  literally  speaking,  is  the 
air  which  a  very  large  proportion  of  the  inhabitants  of  the 
City  are  condemned  to  breathe.  ...  In  some  instances, 
where  the  basement  storey  of  a  house  is  tenanted,  the  cess- 
pool lies,  perhaps  merely  boarded  over,  close  beneath  the 
feet  of  a  family  of  human  beings  whom  it  surrounds  uninter- 
ruptedly, whether  they  wake  or  sleep,  with  its  foetid  pollu- 
tion and  poison." 

For  such  evils,  and  such  a  state  of  things,  he  said,  house 
drainage,  with  effective  water  supply,  were  the  remedies 
which  could  alone  avail ;  and  it  was  only  in  the  Session  of 
1848  that  the  authority  to  secure  and  enforce  these  remedies 
was  vested  by  the  Legislature  in  any  public  body  whatso- 
ever. The  City  was  fortunately  included,  but  the  metropolis, 
with  its  two  and  a  half  millions  of  inhabitants,  was  unfortu- 
nately not. 

The  unrestricted  supply  of  water,  he  pointed  out,  was  the 
first  essential  of  decency,  of  comfort,  and  of  health ;  no 
civilisation  of  the  poorer  classes  could  exist  without  it ;  and 
any  limitation  to  its  use  in  the  metropolis  was  a  barrier 
which  must  maintain  thousands  in  a  state  of  the  most 
unwholesome  filth  and  degradation. 

Even  in  the  City,  however,  the  supply  of  water  was  but 
"  a  fraction  of  what  it  should  have  been,  and  thousands 
of  the  population  inhabited  houses  which  had  no  supply 
of  it." 

Nor  was  what  was  supplied  by  the  Water  Companies 
much  to  boast  of. 

"  The  waters  were  conducted  from  their  sources  in  open 
channels;  they  received  in  a  large  measure  the  surface- 
washing,  the  drainage,  and  even  the  sewage  of  the  country 
through  which  they  passed  ;  they  derived  casual  impurities 
from  bathers  and  barges,  and  on  their  arrival  were,  after  a 


52         THE  SANITARY  EVOLUTION 

short  subsidence  in  reservoirs,  distributed  without  filtration 
to  the  pubHc." 

In  some  cases  the  scanty  distribution  was  from  a  stand- 
pipe  in  a  court  or  alley,  for  a  very  short  time  of  the  day.  In 
other  cases  the  water  was  delivered  into  butts  or  cisterns. 
Their  condition  is  thus  described  : — 

"  In  inspecting  the  courts  and  alleys  of  the  '  City,'  "  he 
wrote,  "  one  constantly  sees  butts,  for  the  reception  of  water, 
either  public  or  in  the  open  yards  of  houses,  or  sometimes 
in  their  cellars ;  and  these  butts,  dirty,  mouldering,  and 
coverless ;  receiving  soot  and  all  other  impurities  from  the 
air ;  absorbing  stench  from  the  adjacent  cesspool ;  inviting 
filth  from  insects,  vermin,  sparrows,  cats,  and  children ; 
their  contents  often  augmented  through  a  rain-water  pipe 
by  the  washings  of  the  roof,  and  every  hour  becoming 
fustier  and  more  offensive.  Nothing  can  be  less  like 
what  water  should  be  than  the  fluid  obtained  under  such 
circumstances." 

It  is  interesting  to  observe  that  the  evils  of  the  system 
of  water  supply  by  private  companies  were,  even  in  the 
"  City,"  so  manifest  that  Dr.  Simon  expressed  his  opinion 
that  the  only  satisfactory  solution  of  the  difficulty  in 
connection  therewith  was  the  acquisition  by  the  public 
authority  of  the  control  of  the  supply,  and  he  urged  the 
adoption  of  the  principle  of  what  is  now  denounced  by 
some  people  as  "municipal  trading." 

In  every  practical  sense  the  sale  of  water  in  London 
was  a  monopoly. 

"  The  individual  customer,"  wrote  Dr.  Simon,  *'  who  is 
dissatisfied  with  his  bargain  can  go  to  no  other  market ; 
and  however  legitimate  may  be  his  claim  to  be  supplied 
with  this  prime  necessary  of  life  at  its  cheapest  rate,  in 
the  most  efficient  manner,  and  of  the  best  possible  quality, 
your  Honourable  Court  (the  Commissioners  of  Sewers) 
hitherto  possesses  no  power  to  enforce  it." 

In  the  Public  Health  Act  of  1848  the  principle  had 
been  recognised  by  Parliament  so  far  as  towns  in  the 
country  were  concerned — local  Boards  of  Health  being 
authorised  to  provide  their  district  with  such  a  supply  of 


OF  LONDON  53 

water  as  might  be  proper  or  sufficient,  or  to  contract  for 
such  a  supply.  He  urged  that  the  City  should  obtain  a 
similar  power. 

**  All  the  advantages  which  could  possibly  be  gained  by 
competition,  together  with  many  benefits  which  no  com- 
petition could  ensure,  would  thus  be  realised  to  the  popu- 
lation under  your  charge." 

But  that  solution  of  the  difficulty  was  more  than  half  a 
century  in  advance  of  its  accomplishment  so  far  as  either 
the  "City"  or  "greater  London"  was  concerned. 

As  to  the  atmosphere  in  the  "  City,"  there  seems  to 
have  been  no  limit  to  the  pollutions  thereof,  all  of  which 
were  injurious  to  the  health  of  the  public. 

Numerous  noxious  and  offensive  trades  were  carried  on 
in  the  most  crowded  places. 

Directly  and  indirectly,  slaughtering  of  animals  in  the 
"City"  was  .prejudicial  to  the  health  of  the  population, 
and  exercised  a  most  injurious  influence  upon  the  district. 

The  number  of  slaughter-houses  registered  and  tolerated 
in  the  "  City"  in  1848  amounted  to  138,  and  of  these,  in 
58  cases,  the  slaughtering  was  carried  out  in  the  vaults 
and  cellars.* 

And  there  were  very  many  noxious  and  offensive  trades 
in  close  dependence  upon  "  the  original  nuisance  "  of  the 
slaughter-house,  and  round  about  it,  "  the  concomitant  and 
still  more  grievous  nuisances  of  gut-spinning,  tripe-dressing, 
bone-boiling,  tallow-melting,  paunch-cooking,  &c.,  &c." 

Certain  it  is  that  offensive  businesses  of  these  and  other 
sorts  were  carried  on  by  their  owners  with  an  absolute 
disregard  to  the  comfort  or  health  of  the  public. 

The  matter  was  a  difficult  one  to  deal  with,  as  any 
severe  restrictions  might  destroy  the  trade  or  manufacture 
and  take  away  from  the  people  the  employment  which 
gave  them  the  means  of  earning  a  livelihood.  Further- 
more, such  restrictions  were  usually  resented  as  an  in- 
fraction of  personal  liberty.  Dr.  Simon  forcibly  and 
conclusively  answered  this  contention. 

" It  might,"  he  wrote,  "be  an  infraction  of  personal 
*  This  was  rendered  illegal  by  the  amended  City  Sewers  Act  of  1851. 


54         THE   SANITARY  EVOLUTION 

•  liberty    to    interfere   with   a    proprietor's   right   to    make 

offensive  smells  within  the  limits  of  his  own  tenement, 
and  for  his  own  separate  inhalation,  but  surely  it  is  a  still 
greater  infraction  of  personal  liberty  when  the  proprietor, 
entitled  as  he  is  to  but  the  joint  use  of  an  atmosphere 
which  is  the  common  property  of  his  neighbourhood, 
assumes  what  is  equivalent  to  a  sole  possession  of  it,  and 
claims  the  right  of  diffusing  through  it  some  nauseous 
effluvium  which  others,  equally  with  himself,  are  thus 
obliged  to  inhale." 

Some  improvement  in  this  respect  was  rendered  possible 
by  the  Act  of  1851,  which  enacted  that  whatever  trade  or 
business  might  occasion  noxious  or  offensive  effluvia,  or 
otherwise  annoy  the  inhabitants  of  its  neighbourhood, 
"shall"  be  required  to  employ  the  best  known  means  for 
preventing  or  counteracting  such  annoyance. 

But  the  remedy  scarcely  appears  to  have  been  availed  of 
or  enforced,  and  "greater  London"  was,  as  usual,  excluded 
from  the  Act. 

Another  more  constant  pollution  of  the  air  was  that 
resulting  from  intramural  burial.  "  Overcrowding  "  in  the 
"  City  "  was  not  limited  to  the  living  ;  it  extended  even  to 
the  dead,  and  though  the  dead  themselves  had  passed 
beyond  any  further  possible  harm  from  it,  yet  their  over- 
crowding affected  disastrously  those  they  had  left  behind. 
Here  the  evils  already  described  as  existing  in  "  greater 
London  "  existed  also  in  acute  form.  Two  thousand  bodies 
or  more  were  interred  each  year  actually  within  the  "  City  " 
area,  and  the  burial  grounds  were  densely  packed.  And 
"  in  all  the  larger  parochial  burying  grounds,  and  in  most 
others,  the  soil  was  saturated  with  animal  matter  under- 
going slow  decomposition." 

And  the  vaults  beneath  the  churches  were  ' '  in  many 
instances  similarly  overloaded  with  materials  of  putre- 
faction, and  the  atmosphere  which  should  have  been  kept 
pure  and  without  admixture  for  the  living,  was  hourly 
tainted  with  the  foetid  emanations  of  the  dead.  .  .  ." 

In  Dr.  Simon's  words  : — 

"  Close  beneath  the  feet  of  those  who  attend  the  services 


OF   LONDON  55 

of  their  church  there  often  lies  an  almost  solid  pile  of 
decomposing  human  remains,  heaped  as  high  as  the 
vaulting  will  permit,  and  generally  but  very  partially 
coffined." 

The  Metropolitan  Burials  Act  of  1852  effected  a  great 
improvement  in  this  respect  by  putting  a  term  to  the 
indefinite  perpetuation  of  this  horrible  evil.  It  gave  the 
Secretary  of  State  power  to  prohibit  further  intramural 
burials,  and  it  gave  the  "  City,"  and  other  local  authorities, 
the  power  to  establish  burial  places  beyond  the  boundaries 
of  the  metropolis.  But,  even  when  thus  stopped,  years 
had  to  elapse  before  the  condition  of  intramural  burial 
grounds  and  vaults  would  cease  to  vitiate  the  air  around 
them.* 

The  atmosphere  of  the  "  City,"  the  air  which  people 
breathed,  was  thus  vitiated  in  varying  degrees  of  intensity 
by  numerous  and  various  abominations — the  polluted 
Thames,  defective  sewerage  and  drainage,  offensive  trades, 
intramural  interments. 

As  regards  the  houses  in  which  the  people  lived,  these 
were  crammed  together — packed  as  closely  together  as 
builders'  ingenuity  could  pack  them — many  of  them  com- 
bining every  defect  that  houses  could  have,  and  so  situated 
that  ventilation  was  an  impossibility. 

**  In  very  many  parts  of  the  City  you  find  a  number  of 
courts,  probably  with  very  narrow  inlets,  diverging  from 
the  open  street  in  such  close  succession  that  their  backs 
adjoin,  with  no  intermediate  space  whatsoever.  Conse- 
quently each  row  of  houses  has  but  a  single  row  of  windows 
facing  the  confined  court,  and  thus  there  is  no  possibility  of 
ventilation,  either  through  the  court  generally  or  through 
the  houses  which  compose  it.  .  .  .  Houses  so  constructed 
as  to  be  as  perfectly  a  cul-de-sac  out  of  the  court  as  the 
court  is  a  cul-de-sac  out  of  the  street."  f 

And  the  climax  of  insanitary  conditions  was  reached 
when  these  densely-packed  houses  were  overcrowded  by 
human  beings. 

*  See  P.P.  1854-5,  vol.  x.,  General  Keport  of  Medical  Council, 
f  Simon,  1st  Report,  1849. 


56         THE   SANITARY  EVOLUTION 

The  process  of  converting  dwelling-houses  into  ware- 
houses, or  business  offices,  or  for  trade  or  manufactures  was 
in  full  swing — a  constant  force — and  so  the  number  of 
houses  for  people  to  live  in  became  ever  fewer. 

And  the  "  tenement  houses,"  in  which  the  great  bulk 
of  the  working  classes  lived,  became  more  and  more 
crowded ;  houses  wherein  "  each  holding  or  tenement, 
though  very  often  consisting  but  of  a  single  small 
room,  receives  its  inmates  without  available  restriction 
as  to  their  sex  or  number,  and  without  registration  of 
the  accommodation  requisite  for  cleanliness,  decency,  and 
health." 

The  Census  of  1851  had  shown  an  increase  of  over  4,200 
in  the  population  of  the  "  City,"  and  a  diminution  of  nearly 
900  houses. 

"Probably,"  wrote  Dr.  Simon,  "for  the  most  part  it 
represents  the  continued  influx  of  a  poor  population  into 
localities  undesirable  for  residence,  and  implies  that  habi- 
tations previously  unwholesome  by  their  overcrowdedness 
are  now  still  more  densely  thronged  by  a  squalid  and  sickly 
population.  .  .  . 

"It  is  no  uncommon  thing,  in  a  room  twelve  feet 
square  or  less,  to  find  three  or  four  families  styed  together 
(perhaps  with  infectious  disease  among  them),  filling  the 
same  space  night  and  day — men,  women,  and  children,  in 
the  promiscuous  intercourse  of  cattle.  Of  these  inmates 
it  is  nearly  superfluous  to  observe  that  in  all  ofiices  of 
nature  they  are  gregarious  and  public;  that  every  instinct 
of  personal  or  sexual  decency  is  stifled  ;  that  every  naked- 
ness of  life  is  uncovered  there.  ,  .  .  Who  can  wonder  at 
what  becomes,  physically  and  morally,  of  infants  begotten 
and  born  in  these  bestial  crowds?  .  .  ." 

Of  overcrowding  or  "pestilential  heaping  of  human 
beings,"  this  matter  of  "infinite  importance,"  he  wrote: — 
"While  it  maintains  physical  filth  that  is  indescribable, 
while  it  perpetuates  fever  and  the  allied  disorders,  while  it 
creates  mortality  enough  to  mask  the  results  of  all  your 
sanitary  progress,  its  moral  consequences  are  too  dreadful 
to  be  detailed." 


OF   LONDON  67 

Pursuing  his  masterly  analysis  of  the  sanitary  con- 
dition of  the  people  in  the  "  City "  and  its  causes,  he 
wrote  : — 

"  Last  and  not  least  among  the  influences  prejudicial  to 
health  in  the  City,  as  elsewhere,  must  be  reckoned  the 
social  condition  of  the  working  classes.  .  .  .  Often  in  dis- 
cussion of  sanitary  subjects  before  your  Honourable  Court, 
the  filthy,  or  slovenly,  or  improvident,  or  destructive,  or 
intemperate,  or  dishonest  habits  of  these  classes  are  cited  as 
an  explanation  of  the  inefficiency  of  measures  designed  for 
their  advantage.  It  is  constantly  urged  that  to  bring  im- 
proved domestic  arrangements  within  the  reach  of  such 
persons  is  a  waste  and  a  folly. 

"It  is  unquestionable  that  in  houses  containing  all  the 
sanitary  evils  enumerated — undrained  and  waterless,  and 
unventilated — there  do  dwell  whole  hordes  of  persons 
who  struggle  so  little  in  self-defence  against  that  which 
surrounds  them  that  they  may  be  considered  almost 
indifferent  to  its  existence,  or  almost  acclimated  to  endure 
its  continuance. 

"It  is  too  true  that  among  the  lower  classes  there  are 
swarms  of  men  and  women  who  have  yet  to  learn  that 
human  beings  should  dwell  differently  from  cattle — swarms 
to  whom  personal  cleanliness  is  utterly  unknown ;  swarms 
by  whom  delicacy  and  decency  in  their  social  relations  are 
quite  unconceived. 

"  My  sphere  of  duty  lies  within  the  City  boundary. 

**I  studiously  refrain  from  instituting  comparisons  with 
other  metropolitan  localities. 


"I  feel  the  deepest  conviction  that  no  sanitary  system 
can  be  adequate  to  the  requirements  of  the  time,  or  can 
cure  those  radical  evils  which  infest  the  under  framework  of 
society,  unless  the  importance  be  distinctly  recognised  and 
the  duty  manfully  undertaken  of  improving  the  social  con- 
dition of  the  poor.  ... 

"  Who  can  wonder  that  the  laws  of  society  should  at 
times  be   forgotten    by   those   whom   the    eye  of    society 


58         THE   SANITARY  EVOLUTION 

habitually  overlooks,  and  whom  the  heart  of  society  often 
appears  to  discard? 

"  To  my  duty  it  alone  belongs,  in  such  respects,  to  tell 
you  where  disease  ravages  the  people  under  your  charge,  and 
wherefore ;  but  while  I  lift  the  curtain  to  show  you  this — a 
curtain  which  propriety  may  gladly  leave  unraised — you 
cannot  but  see  that  side  by  side  with  pestilence  there  stalks 
a  deadlier  presence,  blighting  the  moral  existence  of  a  rising 
population,  rendering  their  hearts  hopeless,  their  acts 
ruffianly  and  incestuous,  and  scattering,  while  Society 
averts  her  eyes,  the  retributive  seeds  of  increase  for  crime, 
turbulence,  and  pauperism." 

And  what  was  the  physical  result  of  this  state  of 
living  ? 

"  In  some  spots  in  the  City  you  would  see  houses,  courts, 
and  streets,  where  the  habitual  proportion  of  deaths  is  far 
beyond  the  heaviest  pestilence  rate  known  for  any  metro- 
politan district  aggregately — localities  where  the  habitual 
rate  of  death  is  more  appalling  than  any  such  averages  can 
enable  you  to  conceive. 

"  Among  their  dense  population  it  is  rare  to  see  any  other 
appearance  than  that  of  squalid  sickness  and  misery,  and 
the  children  who  are  reproduced  with  the  fertility  of  a 
rabbit  warren  perish  in  early  infancy. 

"  The  diseases  of  these  localities  are  well  marked. 
Scrofula  more  or  less  completely  blights  all  that  are  born 
.  .  .  often  prolonging  itself  as  a  hereditary  curse  in  the 
misbegotten  offspring  of  those  who,  under  such  unnatural 
conditions,  attain  to  maturity  and  procreation. 

"  Typhus  prevails  as  a  habitual  pestilence. 

"  The  death  rate  during  the  last  five  years  has  been  at 
the  rate  of  about  twenty-four  per  1,000  per  annum. 

"  The  City  of  London  appears  peculiarly  fatal  to  infant 
life. 

"  Of  the  15,697  persons  who  died  within  your  jurisdiction 
in  the  five  years  1847-8  to  1852-3,  nearly  three-eighths  died 
in  the  first  five  years  of  life." 

To  his  employers  he  mostly  appeals.  He  hopes  that  the 
statements  in  his  reports  may  suffice  to  convince  them  of 


OF   LONDON  69 

the  necessity  which  exists  in  the  "  City  "  of  London  for  some 
effectual  and  permanent  sanitary  organisation. 

"  For  the  metropolis  generally  there  is  hitherto  no 
sanitary  law  such  as  you  possess  for  your  territory." 

He  pointed  out  that — 

"  Inspection  of  the  most  constant,  most  searching,  most 
intelligent,  and  most  trustworthy  kind  is  that  in  which  the 
provisional  management  of  our  said  affairs  must  essentially 
consist. 

"  The  committee  was  given  power  by  the  Act  for  the 
amendment  or  removal  of  houses  presenting  aggravated 
structural  faults. 

"  Wherever  your  Medical  Officer  of  Health  may  certify  to 
you  that  any  house  or  building  is  permanently  unwholesome 
and  unfit  for  human  habitation,  you  are  empowered  to 
require  of  the  owner  (or  in  his  neglect  yourselves  to  under- 
take) the  execution  of  whatever  works  may  be  requisite  for 
rendering  the  house  habitable  with  security  to  life." 

And  he  urged  that : — 

"  The  principle  might  be  distinctly  recognised  that  the 
City  will  not  tolerate  within  its  municipal  jurisdiction  the 
continuance  of  houses  absolutely  incompatible  with  healthy 
habitation. 

"Here  terminates  my  statement  of  the  powers  now  vested 
in  you  for  the  maintenance  of  the  public  health. 

•'  Authority  so  complete  for  this  noble  purpose  has  never 
before  been  delegated  to  any  municipal  body  in  the 
country. 

"  If  the  deliberate  promises  of  Science  be  not  an  empty 
delusion,  it  is  practicable  to  reduce  human  mortality 
within  your  jurisdiction  to  nearly  the  half  of  the  present 
prevalence." 

The  most  valuable  and  weighty  of  all  his  conclusions  was 
that  affixing  the  responsibility  for  the  existing  mass  of 
insanitation  and  consequent  misery.  With  a  courage 
worthy  of  all  admiration  he  did  not  hesitate,  regardless 
of  the  consequences  to  himself,  to  fix  the  responsibility 
and  blame  where  they  were  due. 


60         THE   SANITARY  EVOLUTION 

**  The  fact  is  that,  except  against  wilful  violence,  life  is 
very  little  cared  for  by  the  law." 

Of  Parliament  he  wrote  : — 

"  Fragments  of  legislation  there  are,  indeed,  in  all 
directions ;  enough  to  establish  precedents,  enough  to 
testify  some  half-conscious  possession  of  a  principle;  but 
for  usefulness  little  beyond  this.  The  statutes  tell  that 
now  and  then  there  has  reached  to  high  places  the  wail 
of  physical  suffering.  They  tell  that  our  law  makers,  to 
the  tether  of  a  very  scanty  knowledge,  have,  not  unwillingly, 
moved  to  the  redress  of  some  clamorous  wrong.  .  .  .  But 
.  .  .  their  insufficiencies  constitute  a  national  scandal,  .  .  . 
something  not  far  removed  from  a  national  sin.  .  .  . 

"The  landlord  must  be  held  responsible  for  the  decent 
and  wholesome  condition  of  his  property,  and  for  such 
conduct  of  his  tenants  as  will  maintain  that  condition." 

The  clear,  precise,  and  unqualified  enunciation  of  such 
a  principle  must  have  given  a  shock  to  many  of  the 
members  of  the  governing  authority  of  the  "  City,"  and 
excited  their  wrath,  the  more  especially  as  it  was  so 
absolutely  sound  and  true. 

"The  death  of  a  child  by  smallpox,"  he  went  on  to  say, 
**  would  in  most  instances  call  for  a  verdict  of  '  homicide  by 
omission '  against  the  parent  who  had  neglected  daily 
opportunities  of  giving  it  immunity  from  that  disease  by 
the  simple  process  of  vaccination ;  the  death  of  an  adult 
by  typhus  would  commonly  justify  still  stronger  condemna- 
tion (though  with  more  difficulty  of  fixing  and  proportioning 
the  particular  responsibility)  against  those  who  ignore  the 
duties  of  property,  and  who  knowingly  let  for  the  occupation 
of  the  poor  dwellings  unfit  even  for  brute  tenants,  dwellings 
absolutely  incompatible  with  health." 

And  then  he  proceeds  to  explain  and  justify  and  enlarge 
upon  his  assertion  of  the  responsibility  of  the  landlord, 

' '  There  are  forty-five  miles  of  sewerage  in  your  jurisdic- 
tion, ready  to  receive  the  streams  of  private  drainage,  and 
leaving  the  owners  of  house  property  no  excuse  for  the 
non-performance  of  necessary  works.  .  .  .  But  .  .  .  the 
intentions  of  your  Court,  and  the  industry  of  its  officers, 


OF  LONDON  61 

have  been  in  great  measure  frustrated  by  the  passive 
resistance  of  landlords.  Delays  and  subterfuges  have  been 
had  recourse  to  in  order  to  avoid  compliance  with  the 
injunctions  of  the  Commission." 

In  his  evidence  before  the  Eoyal  Commission  of  1853-4 
he  said  : — 

"  The  poorer  house  property  of  the  City  is  very  often  in 
the  hands  of  wealthy  people  who  have  only  the  most  general 
notion  of  its  whereabouts,  have  perhaps  never  visited  the 
place  for  which  they  receive  rent,  and  in  short  know  their 
property  only  through  their  agents. 

"Instances  have  come  to  my  knowledge  of  the  very  worst 
description  of  property  being  thus  held  ignorantly  and  care- 
lessly by  wealthy  persons.  Often  for  years  we  can  get  at 
no  representative  of  the  property  other  than  the  agent  or 
collector  who  receives  the  weekly  rent  for  some  anonymous 
employer." 

In  his  third  Eeport  to  the  Commissioners  of  Sewers  he 
wrote : — 

"It  is  easy  to  foresee  the  numerous  obstacles  which 
interested  persons  will  set  before  you  to  delay  the  accom- 
plishment of  your  great  task. 

"When  your  orders  are  addressed  to  some  owner  of 
objectionable  property  —  of  some  property  which  is  a 
constant  source  of  nuisance,  or  disease,  or  death  ;  when 
you  would  force  one  person  to  refrain  from  tainting 
the  general  atmosphere  with  results  of  an  offensive 
occupation ;  when  you  would  oblige  another  to  see  that 
his  tenantry  are  better  housed  than  cattle,  and  that,  while 
he  takes  rent  for  lodging,  he  shall  not  give  fever  as  an 
equivalent — amid  these  proceedings  you  will  be  reminded 
of  the  '  rights  of  property '  and  of  '  an  Englishman's  inviol- 
able claim  to  do  as  he  will  with  his  own.' 

"  Permit  me  to  remind  you  that  your  law  makes  full 
recognition  of  these  principles  and  that  the  cases  in  which 
sophistical  appeal  will  often  be  made  to  them  are  exactly 
those  which  are  most  completely  condemned  by  a  fuU  and 
fair  application  of  the  principles  adverted  to.  With  private 
affairs  you    interfere   only  when    they  become   of    public 


J-, 


62         THE   SANITARY  EVOLUTION 

import,  with  private  liberty  only  when  it  becomes  a  public 
encroachment.  The  factory  chimney  that  eclipses  the 
light  of  heaven  with  unbroken  clouds  of  smoke,  the  melting 
house  that  nauseates  an  entire  parish,  the  slaughter-house 
that  forms  round  itself  a  circle  of  dangerous  disease — these 
surely  are  not  private  but  public  affairs. 

"And  how  much  more  justly  may  the  neighbour  appeal 
to  you  against  each  such  nuisance  as  an  interference  with 
his  privacy ;  against  the  smoke,  the  stink,  the  fever  that 
bursts  through  each  inlet  of  his  dwelling,  intrudes  on  him 
at  every  hour,  disturbs  the  enjoyment  and  shortens  the 
duration  of  his  life.  And  for  the  rights  of  property — they 
are  not  only  pecuniary.  Life,  too,  is  a  great  property,  and 
your  Act  (of  1851)  asserts  its  rights." 

"The  landlord  of  some  overthronged  lodging  house  com- 
plains that  to  reduce  the  number  of  his  tenantry,  to  lay 
on  water,  to  erect  privies,  or  to  execute  some  other  in- 
dispensable sanitary  work,  would  diminish  his  rental — 
in  the  spirit  of  your  Act  it  is  held  a  sufficient  reply  that 
human  life  is  at  stake — and  that  a  landlord  in  his  dealings 
with  the  ignorant  and  indefensive  poor  cannot  be  suffered 
to  estimate  them  at  the  value  of  cattle,  to  associate  them 
in  worse  than  bestial  habits,  or  let  to  them  for  hire  at  how- 
ever moderate  a  rent  the  certain  occasions  of  suffering  and 
death." 

"  Seeing  the  punctuality  with  which  weekly  visitation  is 
made  for  the  collection  of  rents  in  these  wretched  dwellings 
it  would  not  be  unreasonable  to  insist  on  some  regulations 
for  the  clean  and  wholesome  condition  of  his  premises, 
water  supply,  and  scavenging,  &c." 

Such  a  regulation  would  "  render  it  indispensable  to  the 
landlord  of  such  holdings  to  promote  cleanly  and  decent 
habits  among  his  tenants — even  to  obtain  security  for  their 
good  behaviour." 

The  picture  thus  presented  of  the  sanitary  condition  of 
the  people  residing  in  the  "  City  "  about  the  middle  of  the 
last  century  is — it  must  be  acknowledged — a  terrible  one; 
but  it  rests  upon  unimpeachable  testimony. 

The  very  grave  and  serious  conclusion,  however,  follows 


OF  LONDON  63 

from  it — that  if  the  evils  were  thus  terrible  in  the  "  City," 
with  a  comparatively  small  population,  only  a  little  more 
than  a  twentieth  of  that  of  the  metropolis,  and  where  there 
was  a  local  government  with  wide  powers  for  dealing  with 
matters  affecting  the  public  health — how  infinitely  more 
serious  was  the  condition  of  things  in  the  "greater  London" 
with  its  huge  population,  and  where  there  was  practically  no 
local  government,  and  no  punitive  law  for  insanitary  mis- 
doings and  crimes. 

In  some  degree,  the  evils  the  people  suffered  under  were 
of  their  own  making,  though  many  excuses  can  be  urged  in 
extenuation.  In  some  degree,  too,  the  people  were  un- 
questionably the  victims  of  circumstances.  But  in  the 
main,  they  were  the  victims  of  other  people's  iniquities. 
It  was  those  circumstances  which  the  Government  should 
have  altered,  or,  at  any  rate,  have  endeavoured  to  control  or 
modify — it  was  the  unlimited  power  to  do  evil  that  the 
Government  should  have  checked  and  curbed  ;  but  "greater 
London "  was  virtually  left  outside  the  pale  of  remedial 
legislative  treatment  by  Parliament. 


IV 

The  great  cholera  epidemic  of  1848-9  had  deeply  stirred 
public  feeling  in  London.  It  had  destroyed  14,600  people 
(and  diarrhoea,  its  satellite,  had  destroyed  many  thousands 
more),  and  it  had  been  "  accompanied  by  an  amount  of 
sickness  and  physical  misery  beyond  computation."  But 
even  all  its  horrors,  and  all  the  proofs  it  afforded  of  the 
desperately  insanitary  condition  of  the  masses  in  the 
metropolis,  were  not  sufficient  to  induce  the  Government 
to  depart  from  its  policy  of  neglect,  or  to  wring  from 
Parhament  measures  which  would  lay  the  basis  for  the 
alleviation  of  the  sufferings  of  the  working  population 
of  the  metropolis,  or  which  would  remove  even  a  small 
part  of  the  evils  which  fell  so  heavily  upon  those  least  able 
to  sustain  them,  and  least  able  to  remove  them. 


64         THE   SANITARY  EVOLUTION 

The  health  of  London  was  becoming  worse  every  year. 
The  number  of  persons  dying  from  preventable  disease  had 
been  steadily  increasing. 

One  gleam  of  hope  there  was,  however.  An  increasing 
number  of  persons  were  becoming  interested  in  the  health 
of  the  people,  and  were  awakening  to  the  gravity  of  the 
subject,  and  to  the  public  discredit  and  inhuman  scandal 
of  the  existing  condition  of  things — an  awakening  of 
interest  which,  in  February,  1850,  reached  to  the  extent 
of  a  public  meeting. 

The  Bishop  of  London  presided,  and  the  meeting  was 
rendered  the  more  remarkable  by  speeches  from  Lord 
Ashley,  then  actively  pressing  sanitary  and  social  questions 
forward,  and  by  Charles  Dickens. 

Lord  Ashley  said  : — 

"  The  condition  of  the  metropolis,  in  a  sanitary  point 
of  view,  was  not  only  perilous  to  those  who  resided  in  it, 
but  it  was  an  absolute  disgrace  to  the  century  in  which 
they  lived.  It  was  a  disgrace  to  their  high-sounding  pro- 
fessions of  civilisation  and  morality.  They  were  surrounded 
by  every  noxious  influence — they  were  exposed  to  every 
deadly  pestilence.  .  .  .  The  water  they  drank,  the  air  they 
breathed,  the  surface  they  walked  on,  and  the  ground 
beneath  the  surface,  all  were  tainted  and  rife  with  the 
seeds  of  disease  and  death.  .  .  . 

"  Let  them  look  at  another  abomination — the  existence  of 
putrefying  corpses  in  graveyards  and  in  vaults  amidst  the 
habitations  of  the  living — an  abomination  discountenanced 
by  all  the  civilisation  of  modern  days,  as  it  was  by  that 
of  the  ancient  days — the  practice  of  intramural  inter- 
ments. 

"  Could  anything  be  worse  than  the  graveyards  of  the 
metropolis  ?  Under  a  surface  of  ground  not  amounting 
to  250  acres  there  had  been  interred  within  thirty  years 
in  the  metropolis  far  more  than  1,500,000  human  beings. 
What  must  be  the  condition  of  the  atmosphere  affected 
by  the  exhalations  from  that  surface  ?  .  .  . 

"And  what  were  the  financial  and  social  consequences 
of  allowing  such  a  state  of  things  to  exist  ? 


OF  LONDON  65 

"  At  least  one-third  of  the  pauperism  of  the  country  arose 
from  the  defective  sanitary  condition  of  large  multitudes 
of  the  people.  .  .  ." 

Charles  Dickens  said  : — 

"  The  object  of  the  resolution  he  was  proposing  was  to 
bring  the  Metropolis  within  the  provisions  of  the  Public 
Health  Act,  most  absurdly  and  monstrously  excluded  from 
its  operation.  .  .  .  Infancy  was  made  stunted,  ugly,  and 
full  of  pain ;   maturity  made  old ;   and  old  age  imbecile. 

"  He  knew  of  many  places  in  London  unsurpassed  in  the 
accumulated  horrors  of  their  long  neglect  by  the  dirtiest 
old  spots  in  the  dirtiest  old  towns  under  the  worst  old 
governments  in  Europe. 

"  The  principal  objectors  to  the  improvements  proposed 
were  divided  into  two  classes. 

"  The  first  consisted  of  the  owners  of  small  tenements, 
men  who  pushed  themselves  to  the  front  of  Boards  of 
Guardians  and  parish  Vestries,  and  were  clamorous  about 
the  rating  of  their  property  ;  the  other  class  was  composed 
of  gentlemen,  more  independent  and  less  selfish,  who  had 
a  weak  leaning  towards  self-government.  The  first  class 
generally  proceeded  upon  the  supposition  that  the  com- 
pulsory improvement  of  their  property  when  exceedingly 
defective  would  be  very  expensive.  .  .  . 

"  No  one,"  he  went  on  to  say,  "  who  had  any  knowledge 
of  the  poor  could  fail  to  be  deeply  affected  by  their  patience 
and  their  sympathy  with  one  another — by  the  beautiful 
alacrity  with  which  they  helped  each  other  in  toil,  in  the 
day  of  suffering,  in  the  hour  of  death. 

"  It  hardly  ever  happened  that  any  case  of  extreme  pro- 
tracted destitution  found  its  way  into  the  public  prints 
without  our  reading  at  the  same  time  of  some  ragged 
Samaritan  sharing  his  last  loaf  or  spending  his  last  penny 
to  relieve  the  poor  miserable  in  the  room  upstairs  or  in  the 
cellar  underground.  It  was  to  develop  in  the  poor  people 
the  virtue  which  nothing  could  eradicate,  to  raise  them 
in  the  social  scale  as  they  should  be  raised,  to  lift  them 
from  a  condition  into  which  they  did  not  allow  their  beast 
to  sink,    ...  to  cleanse  the   foul  air    for  the  passage  of 

6 


66         THE   SANITARY  EVOLUTION 

Christianity  and  education  throughout  the  land,  that  the 
meeting  was  assembled.  The  object  of  their  assembly  was 
simply  to  help  to  set  that  right  which  was  wrong  before 
God  and  before  man." 

The  realisation  of  this  object,  noble  as  it  was,  was  not 
easily  attainable. 

The  Vicar  of  St.  Martin-in-the-Fields  said  that  "the 
difficulty  of  legislation  in  these  matters  was  to  hit  the 
medium  between  the  rights  of  property  and  the  rights 
of  humanity."  He  might  have  added,  with  truth,  that  the 
difficulty  had  so  far  been  met  by  sacrificing  the  rights 
of  humanity  to  the  rights  of  property. 

Lord  Ashley  had  pointed  out  that  they  "  had  to  contend 
with  ignorance,  indifference,  selfishness,  and  interest ; " 
or  as  Lord  Robert  Grosvenor  more  vigorously  expressed 
it,  in  a  phrase  which  should  live  in  history  as  giving  the 
key  to  the  mystery  of  the  slow  sanitary  evolution  of  this 
great  city,  they  had  to  contend  against  "  vested  interests 
in  filth  and  dirt." 

One  thing  was  already  absolutely  clear,  that  it  was 
hopeless  to  expect  anything  from  the  spontaneous  action 
of  land-owners  or  house-owners. 

"  They  knew  it  was  quite  impossible,"  said  the  Bishop 
of  Chichester,  *'  to  bring  the  owners  of  even  one  small 
court  or  alley,  much  less  the  owners  or  occupiers  of  any 
large  district,  to  concur  in  any  measure  for  the  general 
good  of  their  particular  locality." 

The  fact  was  that  nothing  but  the  imperative  directions 
of  the  law  would  secure  the  removal  of  evils  or  curtail  the 
practice  of  infamous  abuses — and  even  when  the  law  was 
enacted  for  their  remedy,  nothing  but  its  rigorous  enforce- 
ment with  adequate  penalties  would  make  it  effective. 

As  the  result  of  the  meeting,  a  deputation  waited  on 
Lord  John  Eussell,  the  then  Prime  Minister.  His  reply 
was  not  encouraging. 

"  In  this  city,"  he  said,  "  there  is  very  naturally  and 
properly  great  jealousy  of  any  interference  either  with 
local  rights  or  individual  will  and  freedom  from  control." 

That  great  jealousy  proved  to  be  so  powerful  that  nothing 


OF   LONDON  67 

was  attempted  by  the  Government  except  an  abortive 
effort  to  deal  with  the  loathsome  and  insanitary  evils  of 
intramural  interments  where  vested  interests  were  neither 
powerful  nor  loud  voiced. 

The  Act  was  so  defective  that  it  never  came  into  opera- 
tion, and  two  more  years  elapsed  before  the  Government 
again  essayed  to  deal  with  the  subject.  And  in  the 
meanwhile  that  most  horrible  evil  was  permitted  to  work 
its  will  upon  the  dwellers  in  the  metropolis. 

To  the  enthusiasm  of  an  individual,  and  not  of  the 
Government,  was  due  the  first  effective  attempt  to  grapple 
with  one  of  the  wide-spread,  deep-seated  evils  which  were 
working  such  havoc  among  the  people.  The  most  disas- 
trous and  vicious  forms  of  overcrowding  were  at  the  time 
to  be  found  in  the  so-called  Common  Lodging  Houses — 
the  sink  of  insanitary  abominations. 

These  wer^  the  temporary  and  casual  abodes  of  the 
dregs  of  London  humanity — of  the  tramps,  and  the  unfor- 
tunates, and  the  mendicants  and  criminals,  male  and 
female — when  they  could  afford  the  penny  or  pence  to 
pay  for  their  night's  lodging.  In  most  cases  these  houses 
were  low  brothels  and  hotbeds  of  crime  and  moral  degen- 
eracy, their  foul  and  filthy  condition  making  them  great 
sources  and  propagators  of  contagious  and  loathsome 
diseases. 

In  the  "  City "  the  authorities  had  power  to  regulate 
and  control  them.  Not  so,  however,  in  the  metropolis. 
There,  no  one  had  any  authority  in  the  matter,  nor  was 
there  any  authority  for  any  one  to  have. 

Lord  Ashley,  truly  discerning  that  the  one  and  only 
way  of  dealing  with  this  evil  was  by  regulation  and  con- 
straint, introduced  a  Bill  *  and  actually  carried  it  through 
Parliament,  and  two  years  later  got  another  Act  t  embody- 
ing amendments  which  made  it  more  effective. 

What  the  Common  Lodging  House  owner  or  keeper — 
anxious  to  secure  the  utmost  profits  from  his  property 
and  regardless  of  all  consequences  to  others — would  not 
do,  he  was,  by  those  Acts,  made  to  do. 

*  14  and  15  Vic.  cap.  28.  f  16  and  17  Vic.  cap.  41. 


68         THE   SANITARY  EVOLUTION 

The  houses  which  he  devoted  to  this  purpose,  solely 
for  his  own  profit,  were  placed  under  the  control  and 
inspection  of  the  police,  and  had  to  be  registered  as 
"  Common  Lodging  Houses."  Overcrowding  in  them 
was  checked  by  restricting  the  number  of  inmates  who 
might  be  in  each  room  ;  regulations  (confirmed  by  a 
Secretary  of  State)  were  made,  and  steadily  enforced,  for 
the  separation  of  the  sexes ;  for  the  proper  cleansing  of 
the  houses  ;  and  for  compelling  the  keeper  to  give 
immediate  notice  of  fever  or  any  contagious  or  infectious 
disease  occurring  therein.  The  accumulation  of  refuse 
was  to  be  prevented,  and  provision  had  to  be  made  for 
adequate  sanitary  accommodation,  for  better  drainage, 
and  for  sufficient  water  supply. 

A  very  brief  experience  showed  that  great  practical 
benefits  resulted  from  thus  regulating  these  houses,  and 
the  amount  of  sickness  and  mortality  in  them  became 
astonishingly  small,  considering  the  character  of  their 
inmates  and  the  localities  where  they  were  situated ;  and 
inasmuch  as  the  number  of  such  houses  was  nearly  6,000, 
and  the  population  in  them  about  80,000,  the  benefit  was 
a  really  substantial  one. 

How  obstinate  and  pertinacious  was  the  opposition  of 
house-owners,  or  middlemen,  to  regulation  and  supervision 
of  any  kind  is  illustrated  by  a  case  reported  by  the  Assistant 
Police  Commissioner.*  The  owner  of  certain  premises  in 
St.  Giles  had  been  often  applied  to,  without  success,  to 
remedy  some  gross  sanitary  defects  therein  which  had 
resulted  in  the  loss  of  life  by  fever.  Brought  to  bay  at  last, 
at  the  Police  Court,  and  ordered  to  remedy  the  evil,  he  said 
that  he  was  willing  to  do  all  in  his  power  to  abate  the 
nuisance  .  .  .  but,  "he  thought  he  ought  not  to  be  dictated 
to  as  to  the  way  his  property  was  to  be  managed."  His 
words  embodied  the  predominant  spirit  of  the  time.  "  There 
are,"  wrote  the  Assistant  Police  Commissioner  in  com- 
menting upon  this  case,  "  owners  of  property  whom  nothing 
but  the  strong  arm  of  the  law  can  move." 

Unfortunately  the  Act  did  not  go  far  enough.     Single 
-  P.P.  1854,  vol.  XXXV.  p.  7. 


OF   LONDON  69 

rooms  occupied  by  families  did  not  come  within  its  scope. 
They  constituted  an  enormous  proportion  of  the  habita- 
tions of  the  people,  and  they  were  allowed  to  continue 
the  prolific  cause  of  sanitary  evils  and  of  physical  and  moral 
degradation. 

Limited  in  its  scope  though  the  Act  was,  it  afforded 
nevertheless  one  great  object  lesson — the  lesson  which  since 
that  time  has  been  consistently  preached  by  all  who  had 
actual  experience  as  regarded  the  sanitary  condition  of  the 
people  of  London — the  lesson  that  the  worst  of  the  sanitary 
and  social  evils  could  only  be  effectually  grappled  with,  on 
the  one  side  by  the  supervision  and  regulation  and  constant 
inspection  of  the  houses  in  which  the  poorer  classes  lived, 
and  upon  the  other  side  by  insistent  compulsion  of  house- 
owners  to  maintain  a  certain  standard  of  sanitation  and 
cleanliness  in  those  houses. 

That,  however,  was  a  course  which  Parliament  for  many 
years  did  not  think  it  desirable  to  adopt,  and  which,  when 
adopted  in  a  tentative  and  half-hearted  sort  of  way,  suffered 
the  usual  fate  of  sanitary  legislation — that  of  being  neglected, 
opposed,  evaded,  or  thwarted  by  land-owners,  house-owners, 
middlemen,  and  by  hostile  local  authorities. 

Lord  Ashley  also  originated  and  succeeded  in  the  same 
Session  in  obtaining  from  Parliament  another  Act  of 
notable  interest,  namely,  "  The  Labouring  Classes  Lodging 
Houses  Act,"  *  which  aimed  at  increasing  the  quantity  of 
houses  for  working  men  by  facilitating  the  establishment 
of  well-ordered  houses  for  such  persons. 

It  gave  power  to  vestries  to  adopt  the  Act,  and  there- 
after to  purchase  or  lease  land,  and  to  erect  houses  thereon 
for  the  working  classes,  and  to  borrow  money  on  the  security 
of  the  rates  for  this  purpose. 

In  advocating  his  plan  in  the  House  of  Commons  he 
enforced  the  importance  of  the  reform.     He  said  : — 

"  Until  the  domiciliary  condition  of  the  working  classes 

were  Christianised  (he  could  use  no  less  forcible  a  term)  all 

hope   of  moral   or   social   improvement  was   utterly   vain. 

Though  not  the  sole,  it  was  one  of  the  prime  sources  of  the 

*  14  and  15  Vic.  cap.  34,  1861. 


70         THE   SANITARY  EVOLUTION 

evils  that  beset  their  condition  ;  it  generated  disease,  ruined 
whole  families  by  the  intemperance  it  promoted,  cut  off  or 
crippled  thousands  in  the  vigour  of  life,  and  filled  the  work- 
houses with  widows  and  orphans."  * 

He  specially  mentioned  one  of  the  objections  urged  to 
this  proposal  for  the  construction  of  better  houses — an 
objection  which  since  then  has  invariably  found  expression 
when  any  amelioration  of  the  housing  of  the  working 
classes  has  been  proposed  to  be  done  by  a  public  authority. 

"  It  was  said  those  matters  ought  to  be  left  to  private 
speculation.  He  should  much  object  to  that.  Private 
speculation  was  very  much  confined  to  the  construction  of 
the  smallest  houses,  and  of  the  lowest  possible  description, 
because  it  was  out  of  these  the  most  inordinate  profits  could 
be  made.  Private  speculation  was  almost  entirely  in  that 
direction." 

He  might  have  added  that  "private  speculation"  had 
hitherto  had  a  completely  free  field  in  the  sphere  of  housing, 
with  all  the  evil  results  visible  before  them,  and  that  it  had 
aggravated  and  intensified  the  evil  instead  of  removing  or 
mitigating  it. 

The  debate  in  Parliament  was  interesting,  as  it  drew  from 
the  Home  Secretary  an  expression  of  the  Government  view 
of  the  situation. 

"  After  all,"  said  Sir  G.  Grey,  "  it  was  not  to  the  Govern- 
ment, it  was  rather  to  the  efforts  of  individuals,  and  asso- 
ciations of  individuals,  that  they  must  look  for  real  and 
general  improvement  among  the  great  body  of  the  people. 
All  that  the  Government  could  do  was  to  remove  obstacles 
in  the  way,  and  to  present  facilities  by  modifications  of  the 
law  more  useful  than  direct  legislation."  * 

An  "  association  of  individuals  "  had  already  been  formed 
— "The  Society  for  Improving  the  Condition  of  the  Labour- 
ing Classes  " — and  work  of  this  class  had  to  the  extent  of  over 
£20,000  been  carried  out  by  it.  The  new  piles  of  buildings 
erected  were  eagerly  availed  of  by  people  of  the  working 
classes,  and  in  a  sanitary  point  of  view  they  at  once  demon- 
strated their  very  satisfactory  immunity  from  disease. 

■-  See  Hansard,  1851,  vol.  cxv. 


OF  LONDON  71 

The  Act,  however,  being  a  voluntary  or  adoptive  Act,  was 
not  likely  to  be  adopted  and  put  into  force  by  those  by 
whom  a  certain  amount  of  financial  liability  might  be 
incurred  as  the  result.  As  a  matter  of  fact  it  never  was  put 
in  force  by  any  vestry,  and  it  remained  a  dead  letter. 

It  was  memorable,  however,  as  embodying  for  the  first 
time  in  legislation  the  idea  that  the  housing  of  the  people 
was  a  public  matter  with  which  a  public  authority  might 
properly  concern  itself,  even  to  the  extent  of  competing 
with  private  enterprise,  and  pledging  the  rates  as  security. 

The  supply  of  water  to  London,  both  as  regarded  quality 
and  quantity,  had,  since  the  epidemic  of  1848-9,  been  en- 
gaging the  attention  of  Committees  of  Parliament,  the 
belief  that  the  epidemic  of  cholera  had  been  increased  and 
propagated  by  the  filthy  and  impure  water  having  given  an 
impetus  to  the  demand  for  ameliorative  measures.  In  1852 
an  Act  *  was  passed  by  which  the  companies  taking  their 
water  from  the  Thames  were  required  to  remove  their 
intakes  to  some  place  above  Teddington  Lock,  where  the 
tide  would  not  affect  it,  and  the  sewage  of  London  would 
not  be  intermixed  with  it.  This  was  a  considerable  step  in 
the  right  direction,  for  though  the  river  above  Teddington 
Lock  received  the  sewage  of  many  large  towns  and  villages, 
it  was  at  least  free  from  contamination  by  the  sewage  and 
filth  of  the  metropolis. 

Other  improvements  were  also  enacted.  Eeservoirs 
within  a  certain  distance  of  St.  Paul's  Cathedral  were  to 
be  covered  in,  and  all  water  intended  for  domestic  use  was 
to  be  filtered  before  being  supplied  to  the  consumer ;  and 
provision  was  also  made  for  a  constant  supply  of  water 
by  every  company  within  five  years  after  the  passing  of 
the  Act. 

But  the  companies  were  given  five  years  within  which  to 
effect  the  removal  of  the  intake  from  the  foulest  parts  of 
the  river  to  above  tidal  reach — and  thus  for  a  wholly  un- 
necessary term  the  cause  which  had  wrought  such  havoc 
among  the  people  was  permitted  to  continue  its  disastrous 
effects. 

*  "  The  MetropoUs  Water  Act,  1852,"  16  and  16  Vic.  cap.  84. 


72         THE   SANITARY  EVOLUTION 


V 

The  epidemic  of  cholera  in  1849  had  failed  to  produce  any 
lasting  effect  upon  the  local  authorities  or  the  public  opinion 
of  London,  and  the  nemesis  of  renewed  neglect  and  in- 
difference was  once  again  to  fall  upon  the  metropolis. 

Cholera  had  kept  hovering  about.  In  1852  a  number  of 
suspicious  cases  occurred  in  various  districts.  In  1853 
suspicion  passed  into  certainty,  and  the  disease  assumed 
the  form  of  an  epidemic — as  many  as  102  deaths  from 
it  occurring  in  the  first  week  in  November.  Then  it 
died  down. 

In  the  following  year  it  again  appeared  in  more  severe 
epidemic  form  over  the  whole  of  the  metropolis.  On  one 
day — September  4th — there  were  459  deaths  from  it.  The 
climax  was  reached  in  the  second  week  in  September 
(almost  the  identical  date  on  which  the  epidemic  of  1849 
occasioned  the  highest  mortality)  and  there  were  2,050 
deaths  from  it.*  In  that  one  month  6,160  persons  died 
from  it,  and  from  July  1st  to  December  16th,  when  it  at 
last  disappeared,  there  was  a  total  mortality  from  cholera 
alone  of  10,675  persons. 

Every  conclusion  which  had  been  arrived  at  as  regards 
the  disease  during  the  previous  epidemics  was  confirmed  by 
this  third  great  epidemic,  and  many  previous  theories  passed 
into  the  region  of  proved  facts.  Cholera  was  once  more 
proved  to  be  a  filth  disease,  and  in  the  main  confined  to 
filthy  localities.  The  more  defective  and  abominable  the 
methods  of  drainage,  the  larger  the  number  of  victims. 
The  filthier  and  more  contaminated  the  water  supplied  for 
drinking  and  household  purposes,  the  more  numerous  the 
cases,  and  the  more  virulent  the  disease.  This  was  demon- 
strated beyond  further  question. 

The  mortality  on  the  south  side  of  the  Thames  was  above 
threefold  what  it  was  on  the  north  side  ;  and  both  as  re- 
garded water  supply  and  drainage,  South  London  was  in  a 
worse  sanitary  state  than  North  London.  The  water  con- 
*  See  P.P.  1854,  vol.  xlv.  p.  22. 


OF   LONDON  73 

sumed  by  the  population  there  was  generally  worse  than 
that  on  the  north.  Lying  lower,  too,  the  drainage  had  less 
chance  of  being  conveyed  away,  and  in  the  miles  upon  miles 
of  open  sewer  ditches  it  was  left  to  rot  and  putrefy  in  close 
propinquity  to  the  houses  and  to  poison  the  air. 

And  the  most  remarkable  proof  was  afforded  by  the 
effects  of  the  consumption  of  water  taken  from  different 
sources. 

In  1849  both  the  Lambeth  and  the  Southwark  Water 
Companies  pumped  the  water  they  supplied  to  their 
customers  from  the  very  foulest  part  of  the  Thames — near 
Hungerford  Bridge — with  equally  diastrous  results.  In  the 
course  of  the  following  years  the  Lambeth  Company  removed 
its  source  of  supply  to  a  part  of  the  river  above  Teddington 
Lock — the  Southwark  Company,  however,  went  on  as 
before.  In  the  epidemic  of  1854  the  inhabitants  of  houses 
supplied  with  the  water  by  the  latter  company  suffered  eight 
times  as  much  as  those  supplied  by  the  better  water  of  the 
Lambeth  Company,  whilst  the  number  of  persons  who  died 
in  the  houses  where  the  impure  was  drunk  was  three  and  a 
half  times  greater  than  that  in  the  houses  where  the  purer 
water  was  supplied. 

Of  all  the  conclusions  arrived  at  by  those  who  had  been 
engaged  in  combating  the  disease  during  this  epidemic,  the 
most  important  was  that  where  cholera  had  become 
localised  it  was  connected  with  obvious  removable  causes, 
and  was  in  fact  a  preventable  disease. 

Most  unfortunately,  and  reprehensibly,  many  of  those 
who  could  have  done  most  to  prevent  it  failed  signally  to 
take  action. 

Once  more,  and  this  time  in  an  accentuated  degree,  the 
wide-spread  prevalence  of  the  disease,  and  the  frightful 
mortality,  were  distinctly  due  to  the  inertia,  laxity,  or 
deliberate  neglect  of  those  local  authorities  who  by  law 
were  charged  with  the  duty  of  cleansing  localities  and 
removing  some  of  the  causes  of  disease. 

The  General  Board  of  Health,  of  which  Sir  Benjamin 
Hall  was  President,  did  all  that  it  could  do.  Medical 
inspectors   were  appointed  by  it  to  visit  all  the  parishes 


74         THE   SANITARY  EVOLUTION 

most  severely  affected  ;  and  the  fullest  and  minutest 
instructions  were  issued  to  the  Boards  of  Guardians  as  to 
the  course  they  should  pursue,  and  the  action  they 
should  take. 

But  several  of  the  Boards  of  Guardians  took  no  notice  of 
the  instructions  sent  them;  others  sent  unsatisfactory 
replies.  In  not  one  of  the  parishes  in  which  the  epidemic 
was  most  fatal  was  the  preventive  machinery,  sanitary  and 
medical,  organised  in  accordance  with  the  instructions  ;  and 
although  some  parishes  did  more  than  others,  yet,  speaking 
generally,  the  administration  of  the  sanitary  and  medical 
relief  measures  by  the  Boards  of  Guardians  was  inefficient 
in  character  and  extent,  except  in  some  of  the  larger  and 
more  healthy  parishes  where  they  were  least  wanted.* 

At  Kotherhithe,  the  Guardians  declined  to  proceed  with 
the  removal  of  nuisances  as  entailing  a  useless  expense. 
At  Deptford,  where  cholera  was  at  the  worst,  no  Inspector 
of  Nuisances  was  appointed,  even  for  the  emergency.  Nor 
did  Greenwich,  where  it  was  also  bad,  appoint  one.  In 
Bethnal  Green,  where  memories  ought  to  have  been  bitter, 
the  authorities  practically  did  nothing,  although  promising 
almost  everything. 

In  Lambeth,  the  parish  was  left  without  any  adequate 
protection  against  the  epidemic  ;  and  it  was  only  after 
urgent  remonstrances  by  the  Medical  Inspector,  and  after 
his  threatening  to  place  himself  in  communication  with  the 
coroner  in  any  cases  of  death  occurring  in  localities  where 
the  proper  cleansing  measures  had  not  been  carried  out, 
that  he  succeeded  in  obtaining  the  adoption  of  measures 
even  to  a  limited  extent.* 

In  Clerkenwell,  the  Guardians  utterly  disregarded  the 
recommendations  of  the  Board  of  Health,  and  from  the 
first  there  was  an  openly  expressed  determination  not  in  any 
way  to  be  interfered  with  by  the  Board. 

And  the  disastrous  state  of  affairs  was,  that  the  Nuisances, 
&c.,  Removal  Acts  gave  the  Board  of  Health  no  power  to 
enforce  upon  the  Guardians  the  execution  of  the  regulations 
made. 

*  See  P.P.  1854-5,  vol.  xlv.,  Reports  of  General  Board  of  Health. 


OF   LONDON  75 

The  whole  sanitary  administration — so  far  as  any  existed 
in  London — was  in  a  state  of  chaos,  and  the  various  local 
authorities  were  able,  with  absolute  impunity  to  themselves, 
to  ignore  and  even  defy  the  General  Board  of  Health.  Of 
these  authorities,  as  has  been  already  said,  there  was  a 
multiplicity,  and  it  was  no  infrequent  occurrence  to  find  the 
administrative  authority  of  some  of  them  in  the  hands  of 
parties  directly  interested  in  the  continuance  of  the  existing 
state  of  matters,  evil  though  those  were.  In  fact,  the 
"  vested  interests  in  filth  and  dirt "  were  a  power  in  local 
administration  in  "greater  London,"  and  the  practical  result 
was  that  the  great  majority  of  the  population  of  the  metro- 
polis were  left  without  any  protection  against  the  ravages  of 
epidemic  or  other  preventable  diseases. 

The  indifference  of  Parliament,  moreover,  had  left  London 
without  any  effective  or  systematic  sanitary  supervision  ; 
and  in  no  part  -of  it,  except  the  "  City,"  was  there  any 
officer  conversant  with  the  effect  of  local  influences  on  the 
health  of  the  population,  or  who  could  advise  as  to  the 
sanitary  measures  which  should  be  adopted. 

The  Board  of  Health  having  had  it  brought  home  to  them 
that,  with  their  limited  powers,  they  were  unable  to  intro- 
duce order  into  this  chaos,  or  to  enforce  even  the  most 
elementary  precautions  against  the  spread  of  the  disease, 
their  President  addressed  a  letter  on  the  29th  of  January, 
1855,  to  Lord  Palmerston,  the  then  Home  Secretary  (and  a 
few  weeks  later  the  Prime  Minister),  in  which  he  set  forth 
the  exact  state  of  affairs  as  ascertained  by  his  own  obser- 
vation and  by  the  experience  of  some  of  the  best  and  most 
well-informed  medical  men  in  London. 

In  this  letter  he  summarised  the  main  causes  of  the 
insanitary  condition  in  which  the  people  of  London  were 
forced  to  live. 

He  wrote  : — 

"  The  evidence  on  the  localising  conditions  of  cholera 
given  in  the  report  of  Dr.  Sutherland  points  to  the  follow- 
ing as  among  the  more  prominent  of  the  removable  causes 
of  z5n2iotic  disease, 

"  Open  ditches  as  sewers.     Want  of  sewers.     Badly  con- 


76         THE   SANITARY  EVOLUTION 

structed  sewers  accumulating  deposits  and  generating  sewer 
gases. 

"  The  pollution  of  the  atmosphere  in  streets  and  within 
houses  from  untrapped  drains,  from  sewer  ventilating 
openings  in  streets,  and  from  cesspools,  whereby  the 
air  was  contaminated  and  the  sub-soil  saturated  with 
filth. 

"  Want  of  house  drainage. 

"  The  absence  of  any  organised  daily  system  of  cleansing, 
and  the  consequent  retention  of  house  refuse  in  or  near 
dwellings. 

"  Bad  water,  badly  distributed.  Unwholesome  trades. 
Unwholesome  vapours  exhaled  from  the  Thames.  Cellar 
habitations. 

"  Neighbourhoods,  the  houses  of  which  are  closely  packed 
together  with  narrow  overcrowded  streets,  alleys  and  courts 
so  constructed  as  to  prevent  ventilation.  Houses  structurally 
defective,  filthy,  unventilated,  and  overcrowded — absolutely 
unfit  for  human  habitation." 

And  several  others  which  need  not  be  here  enumerated. 

''Lastly,  and  applying  to  all  these — multiplicity  of  local 
authorities,  and  the  want  of  sufficient  powers  in  such 
authorities  to  deal  with  these  evils." 

"  Great  as  these  evils  are  in  London,"  he  wrote,  "... 
there  is  not  one  among  them  that  cannot  be  remedied  if 
proper  steps  be  taken. 

"  The  first  and  most  obvious  necessity  in  the  metropolis 
is  to  sweep  away  the  existing  chaos  of  local  jurisdiction." 

Included  in  that  chaos  were  two  Boards  with  great  powers 
of  taxation  over  which  the  ratepayers  had  no  control. * 

One  of  them  consisted  of  the  persons  appointed  under  the 
Metropolitan  Building  Act  of  1844,  who,  at  a  cost  of 
£24,000  a  year,  entirely  neglected  their  work.  The  other, 
the  Commissioners  of  Sewers,  who  had  demonstrated  their 
utter  incapacity,  the  cost  of  whose  establishment  was 
"  something  extraordinary,"  and  who  in  the  five  years  of 
their  existence  had  only  attempted  one  great  work — "the 

*  See  speech  of  Sir  B.  Hall  in  1885  in  House  of  Commons,  Hansard, 
vol.  cxxxvii.  p.  715. 


OF  LONDON  77 

Victoria  Sewer" — which  cost  a  large  sum,  and  which  not 
many  years  after  fell  to  ruins. 

The  great  epidemic  of  cholera,  its  attendant  panic,  its 
gruesome  accompaniments,  its  revelation  of  the  actual 
condition  of  the  masses,  and  of  the  rottenness  of  the  local 
authorities,  and  the  growing  outcry  against  the  iniquity  of 
such  a  state  of  things  in  a  civilised  and  Christian  country, 
brought  matters  to  a  head. 

The  state  of  the  Thames  had  also  become  a  greater 
danger  than  ever  to  the  community,  and  a  more  unbearable 
nuisance. 

As  described  by  The  Lancet  in  July,  1855  : — 

"  The  waters  are  swollen  with  the  feculence  of  the 
myriads  of  living  beings  that  dwell  upon  the  banks,  and 
with  the  waste  of  every  manufacture  that  is  too  foul  for 
utilisation.  Wheresoever  we  go,  whatsoever  we  eat  or 
drink  within  the  "circle  of  London,  we  find  tainted  with  the 
Thames.  .  .  .  No  one  having  eyes,  nose,  or  taste,  can  look 
upon  the  Thames  and  not  be  convinced  that  its  waters  are, 
year  by  year,  and  day  by  day,  getting  fouler  and  more 
pestilential.  .  .  .  The  abominations,  the  corruptions  we 
pour  into  the  Thames,  are  not,  as  some  falsely  say,  carried 
away  into  the  sea.  The  sea  rejects  the  loathsome  tribute, 
and  heaves  it  back  again  with  every  flow.  Here,  in  the 
heart  of  the  doomed  city,  it  accumulates  and  destroys." 

And  the  Government,  compelled  at  last  by  the  force  of 
events  to  take  some  steps  for  the  better  sanitary  government 
of  the  metropolis,  and  for  remedying  some  of  the  evils  the 
people  suffered  under,  decided  on  taking  action. 

Acknowledging  the  necessity  for  giving  local  government 
to  "greater  London  " — the  "  City  "  of  course  already  had  its 
own — it  proposed  the  creation  of  a  central  authority  which 
should  deal  with  certain  matters  affecting  London  as  a 
whole,  and  local  authorities  which  should  deal  with  local 
affairs  affecting  their  own  localities. 

And,  in  1855,  a  group  of  measures  giving  effect  to  these 
views,  and  containing  also  what  amounted  to  a  sanitary 
code  similar  to  that  in  the  Public  Health  Act  already  for 
years  in  force  in  England,  was  passed  by  Parliament. 


78         THE   SANITARY  EVOLUTION 

Those  most  important  measures  marked  the  end  of  one 
great  period  in  the  sanitary  history  of  this  great  metropoHs. 

Of  that  period  it  is  to  be  said  that  there  is  none  in  the 
history  of  London  in  which  less  regard  was  shown  for  the 
condition  of  the  great  mass  of  the  inhabitants  of  the  metro- 
poHs ;  no  period  when  the  spirit  of  commerciaHsm  recked  so 
Httle  of  the  physical  condition  and  circumstances  of  those 
upon  whom,  after  all,  it  depended:  no  period  when  the 
rights  of  property  were  so  untrammelled  by  any  considera- 
tion for  the  welfare  of  human  flesh  and  blood;  no  period 
when  private  individuals  not  alone  so  strained,  for  their  own 
advantage  or  aggrandisement,  the  utmost  rights  the  law 
allowed  them,  but  far  exceeded  those  rights,  and  too  often 
successfully  filched  from  the  public  that  to  which  the  law 
gave  them  no  right. 

Never  had  there  been  a  time  in  which  the  rights  of 
property  had  been  more  insisted  upon  and  exercised.  Never 
a  time  in  which  land-owners,  house-owners,  and  builders 
did  as  freely  as  they  liked  with  their  own,  regardless  of  the 
injury  or  damage  inflicted  upon  others ;  nor  in  which 
manufacturers  carried  on,  without  interference,  trades  for 
their  own  benefit,  which  were  not  merely  offensive,  but 
actually  death-dealing  to  their  neighbours. 

And  throughout  this  period  the  people  in  their  daily  lives 
and  circumstances  were  absolutely  unprotected  by  any 
public  authority,  or  by  any  local  governing  body.  There 
was  no  one  to  help  them  to  contend  against  the  extremest 
exercise  of  real  or  even  assumed  rights. 

In  this  period  London,  the  metropolis,  had  grown  up,  and 
had  not  merely  been  permitted  by  the  Government  and  the 
Legislature  to  grow  up  practically  without  government, 
guidance,  supervision,  or  restraint,  but  it  had  been  absolutely 
denied  any  system  of  local  government,  and  so  been  denied 
all  provision  for  the  sanitary  needs  of  the  community. 

In  1835  a  large  and  liberal  measure  of  municipal  self- 
government  was  given  to  all  the  cities  and  towns  and 
municipalities  large  and  small  of  England  and  Wales — 
many  of  them  not  a  tithe  so  populous  as  the  great  parishes 
of  London — and   a   governing   body,  elected   by  the  rate- 


OF  LONDON  79 

payers,  and  with  almost  all  the  essential  powers  of  local 
government,  was  instituted  in  each.  But  the  Municipal 
Corporations  Act  expressly  excluded  the  great  towns  which 
surrounded  the  walls  of  the  "City"  and  which  constituted 
the  metropolis,  and  the  law  continued  to  recognise  them 
only  as  rural  parishes. 

Twelve  years  later,  namely  in  1847,  the  Towns  Improve- 
ment Act  was  passed,  by  which  towns  of  much  smaller 
size  were  given  facilities  for  obtaining  considerable  powers 
of  local  government.  By  it  general  sanitary  provisions 
were  framed,  which,  with  the  sanction  of  Parliament, 
might  be  applied  in  any  town  for  the  management  by  the 
local  authorities  of  the  supply  of  water,  of  drainage,  of  the 
paving,  cleansing,  and  lighting  of  the  streets,  and  the 
prevention  of  fires ;  and  for  the  regulation  of  buildings, 
of  slaughter-houses,  of  public  baths,  and  of  the  interment 
of  the  dead. 

But  even  this  more  limited  but  still  liberal  system  of 
local  government  was  not  extended  to  London,  and  once 
more  the  metropolis  was  excluded. 

The  "  City  "  did  not  wish  to  extend  its  own  borders,  and 
the  authorities^of  the  "  City  "  viewed  with  dislike  the  idea  of 
the  creation  at  their  very  gates  of  local  bodies  which  might 
develop  into  formidable  rivals. 

And  so  "  greater  London  "  was  left  by  successive  govern- 
ments and  by  Parliament  to  scramble  along  as  best  she 
could,  and  to  suffer. 

And  just  as  there  was  no  local  government  so  were  there 
practically  no  laws  safeguarding  the  sanitary  condition 
of  the  people  except  the  temporary  and  imperfect  ones 
provided  by  the  Nuisances  Eemoval  and  Diseases  Prevention 
Acts  of  1848,  and  such  very  limited  protection  as  the 
common  law  afforded. 

The  Public  Health  Act  of  1848 — a  sanitary  code  in 
itself — was  an  Act  for  England  and  Wales  alone.  The 
benefits  it  conferred  were  refused  to  London ;  and,  as  a 
consequence,  the  masses  of  her  people  were  doomed  to 
continue  in  circumstances  of  the  utmost  misery  ;  year  by 
year  tens  of  thousands   of  her  citizens  were   sent   to   an 


80         THE   SANITARY  EVOLUTION 

unnecessarily  early  death,  and  ten  times  their  number  were 
made  to  undergo  diseases  which  even  then  were  recognised 
as  preventable. 

And  all  the  time  that  she  was  thus  left  without  a  local 
government,  without  any  permanent  sanitary  laws,  other 
forces  were  at  work  inflicting  ever-widening  evil,  and 
intensifying  already  existing  evils. 

The  population  had  increased  by  leaps  and  bounds,  and 
the  increasing  trade  of  London  had  brought  great  numbers 
of  workmen  to  the  metropolis.  The  necessity  for  offices 
and  warehouses  had  led  to  the  substitution  of  such  houses 
for  houses  previously  used  as  residences. 

And  so  the  growing  population  was  forced  to  herd 
ever  closer  together,  houses  were  packed  thicker  and 
thicker,  and,  in  the  central  districts,  every  available  spot 
of  ground  was  built  upon.  And  the  overcrowding  of 
human  beings  in  those  houses,  and  all  the  attendant 
ills,  increased  countless-fold.  And  the  result  was  un- 
paralleled, indescribable,  unspeakable  misery  of  the  indus- 
trial and  working  classes,  and  of  the  lower  and  poorer 
orders. 

Not  merely  years,  but  generations  of  neglect  and  in- 
difference on  the  part  of  the  governing  classes  had  multiplied 
and  intensified  in  London  every  evil  to  which  the  poorer 
classes  of  a  nation  are  liable. 

For  long  the  great  process  of  social  and  economic  change 
at  work  in  "greater  London,"  and  all  that  it  entailed,  was 
let  go  its  own  way — a  way  which,  in  default  of  the  regula- 
tion and  the  alleviation  a  government  should  have  given 
it,  was  beset  with  creakings  and  groanings  like  those  of 
some  badly  constructed  piece  of  machinery;  only  instead 
of  machinery,  inanimate  and  insensitive,  they  were  the 
groanings,  the  agonies,  of  suffering  thousands  and  tens 
of  thousands  of  sick  and  perishing  people,  sinking  annually 
into  the  abyss. 

All  through  the  earlier  half  of  the  nineteenth  century,  in 
fact,  London,  the  great  metropolis,  was  left  to  evolve  itself 
so  far  as  regarded  the  public  health  and  sanitary  condition 
of  the  people. 


OF   LONDON  81 

The  tremendous  import  of  such  deliberate  inaction  by 
Parliament,  and  by  successive  Governments,  is  even  now 
only  partly  comprehended.  But  the  nemesis  has  been 
truly  a  terrible  one.  The  injury  wrought  was  in  many 
ways  irreparable,  and  we  are  still  reaping  the  crop  of  evil 
sown  by  such  seed — are  still  far  from  the  end  of  the 
appalling  consequences  such  a  disastrous  policy  has  entailed. 


CHAPTEE  II 

1855-1860 

The  Act  "  for  the  better  Local  Management  of  the 
Metropolis  "  *  which  was  passed  by  Parliament  in  1855  was 
the  turning  point  in  the  sanitary  history  and  evolution  of 
London, 

It  put  a  term  to  the  chaos  of  local  government  in  "  greater 
London  "  and  swept  away  the  three  hundred  trumpery  and 
petty  existing  local  governing  bodies.  It  created  a  legally 
recognisable  metropolis  by  defining  its  component  parts  and 
boundaries.  It  established  a  definite  system  of  local 
representative  government  in  that  metropolis  for  the 
administration  of  its  local  affairs.  It  conferred  upon  the 
new  authorities  not  only  the  powers  vaguely  possessed  and 
imperfectly,  if  at  all,  acted  on  by  their  predecessors,  but 
a  considerable  number  of  new  ones.  It  laid  the  basis  of  an 
organisation  for  the  sanitary  supervision  of  the  inhabitants 
of  each  parish  of  greater  London. 

And  with  the  object  of  making  provision  for  the  effective 
treatment  of  some  of  the  numerous  matters  affecting 
London  as  a  whole — matters  of  a  general  and  not  of  a  local 
character — with  which  smaller  local  authorities  could  not 
possibly  deal,  and  with  the  further  object  of  securing  a 
certain  uniformity  of  administration  by  the  new  local 
authorities,  it  founded  a  central  governing  body  for  the 
metropolis. 

Simultaneously  Parliament  passed  a  new  "Nuisances 
Bemoval  Act  for  England"  f  which  was  made  applicable  to 
*  18  and  19  Vic.  cap.  120.  f  18  and  19  Vic.  cap.  121. 


SANITARY  EVOLUTION  OF  LONDON    83 

London,  and  which,  coupled  with  the  health  provisions  in 
the  Metropolis  Local  Management  Act,  bestowed  upon  the 
metropolis  a  sort  of  code  of  sanitary  laws  in  some  degree 
similar  to  those  enjoyed  by  other  parts  of  England. 

And  also  an  Act*  making  stricter  provisions  as  to  the 
construction  of  buildings  in  the  metropolis. 

Though  three  Acts  were  thus  passed,  they  formed  but 
separate  parts  of  one  general  plan  of  reform. 

Some  little  detail  must  be  gone  into  as  regards  the  system 
of  local  government  thus  initiated. 

For  government  in  purely  local  matters — in  each  of  the 
twenty-three  largest  parishes,  definite  Vestries,  as  distin- 
guished from  parishioners  meeting  in  open  Vestry,  were 
constituted,  the  members  thereof  being  elected  by  the 
householders  of  the  respective  parishes  rated  to  the  relief 
of  the  poor.  The  total  number  of  members  on  any  Vestry 
was  not  to  exceed  one  hundred  and  twenty,  and  each  year 
one-third  of  them  were  to  retire,  and  an  election  to  be  held 
to  fill  their  places. 

And  as  there  were  many  parishes  so  small  that  to  have 
constituted  them  separate  local  governing  authorities  would 
have  perpetuated  all  the  evils  of  small  areas  of  local 
government,  these  small  parishes  were  grouped  together 
into  "  districts  "  of  a  fairly  large  size,  for  each  of  which — 
some  fourteen  in  number — there  was  to  be  a  governing  body 

entitled  "The  Board  of  Works  for  the District,"  the 

members  thereof  being  elected,  not  directly  by  the  electors, 
but  by  the  smaller  Vestries  constituting  the  District. 

These  new  local  governing  bodies  were  thus  representative 
bodies,  the  Vestries  elected  directly  by  the  ratepayers,  the 
District  Boards  indirectly  elected ;  but  both  were  constituted 
"the  sanitary  authority"  for  their  respective  areas,  both 
were  charged  with  the  administration  of  local  affairs,  and  so 
the  term  "  Vestry  "  and  the  "  District  Board  "  may  be  taken 
as  synonymous. 

The  central  body  which  was  constituted  for  dealing  with 
matters  affecting  London  as  a  whole  was  named  "  The 
Metropolitan  Board  of  Works." 

*  18  and  19  Vie.  cap.  122. 


84         THE   SANITARY  EVOLUTION 

It  was  not  directly  elected  by  the  ratepayers  of  London, 
but  was  elected  by  the  aforesaid  local  authorities  and  by 
the  "City." 

It  consisted  of  forty-five  members.  Three  were  elected  by 
"  the  Mayor,  aldermen,  and  commons  of  the  City  of  London 
in  common  council  assembled." 

Each  of  the  six  largest  Vestries  elected  two  of  their 
members  to  it ;  the  other  Vestries  one  each,  and  the  District 
Boards  of  Works  elected  the  remainder. 

It  was  thus  representative  of  the  whole  of  London — City 
and  Metropolis  included.  Each  year  one-third  of  the 
members  were  to  retire,  and  one-third  to  be  elected  in 
their  place. 

This  central  Board  was  charged  with  many  important 
duties  affecting  London  as  a  whole.  Foremost  amongst 
them  was  the  first  essential  of  any  sanitary  well-being — the 
improvement  of  the  sewerage  and  drainage  of  London. 

This  new  body  superseded  the  Commissioners  of  Sewers, 
and  was  specially  charged  with  the  task  of  designing  and 
carrying  out  "a  system  of  sewerage  which  should  prevent 
all  or  any  part  of  the  sewage  within  the  metropolis  from 
passing  into  the  river  Thames  in  or  near  the  metropolis  : 
and  also  make  all  such  other  sewers  and  works  as  they  may 
from  time  to  time  think  necessary  for  the  effectual  sewerage 
and  drainage  of  the  metropolis." 

It  was  also  given  general  control  over  the  sewage  works, 
and  power  to  make  orders  for  controlling  Vestries  and 
District  Boards  in  the  construction  of  sewers  in  their 
respective  parishes. 

Furthermore  it  was  given  power  to  make,  widen,  or 
improve,  any  streets  or  roads  in  the  metropolis  for 
facilitating  the  traffic,  and  certain  powers  of  prohibiting  the 
erection  of  buildings  beyond  the  regular  line  of  buildings. 
It  was  given  power,  too,  to  make  bye-laws — for  regulating 
the  plans,  level,  and  width,  &c.,  of  new  streets  and  roads; 
for  the  plans  and  level  of  sites  for  building ;  for  the  cleansing 
of  drains,  and  their  communication  with  sewers ;  for  the 
emptying,  closing,  and  filling  up  of  cesspools ;  for  the  re- 
moval of  refuse,  and  generally,  for  carrying  into  effect  the 


OF   LONDON  85 

purposes  of  the  Act — all  which  bye-laws  were  to  be  enforced 
by  the  Vestries  and  District  Boards. 

Thus  it  was  given  large  powers  to  deal  with  many  of  the 
matters  which  most  affected  the  public  health.  But  in  some 
other  such  matters — essential  for  the  effectiveness  of  the 
whole  scheme — it  was  left  strangely  helpless.  It  was  given 
no  power  to  appoint  a  Medical  Officer  of  Health  for  the 
metropolis  to  advise  it  as  to  matters  affecting  the  health  of 
London  as  a  whole ;  or  to  appoint  Inspectors  of  Nuisances 
to  ascertain  information  upon  sanitary  matters  and  to  carry 
out  various  sanitary  duties. 

But,  gravest  and  most  deleterious  defect  of  all,  no 
authority  was  conferred  upon  the  Board  to  compel  any 
negligent  or  recalcitrant  local  authorities  to  carry  out  the 
duties  imposed  upon  them  by  Parliament  or  by  bye-laws 
of  the  Board.  Those  authorities  might  with  absolute 
impunity  neglect  to  carry  out  even  the  imperative  direc- 
tions of  Parliament  as  embodied  in  the  Act,  and  thus  what 
Parliament  emphatically  enacted  "  shall "  be  done  might 
be  left  undone,  with  the  most  disastrous  consequences  to 
the  public  health,  not  merely  of  the  particular  parish,  but 
to  the  great  community  of  London. 

The  omission  of  some  such  provision  made  the  Vestries 
practically  independent  bodies,  and  arbiters  as  to  the 
administration  or  non-administration  of  various  important 
provisions  of  existing  or  future  Acts  of  Parliament,  and 
afforded  them  the  opportunity,  so  freely  and  widely  availed 
of,  of  not  performing  duties  against  their  own  opinions  or 
interests. 

As  regarded  these  newly  created  local  authorities — the 
"Vestries"  and  the  "District  Boards  of  Works" — the 
powers  and  duties  conferred  upon  them  were  extensive. 

All  the  powers  and  duties  of  the  previous  local  authori- 
ties as  regarded  paving,  lighting,  watering,  and  cleansing, 
or  improving  any  parish,  were  transferred  to  them. 

The  sewers,  other  than  the  main  sewers,  were  vested  in 
them,  with  the  contingent  duty  of  maintaining,  repairing, 
and  cleansing  them,  and  they  were  given  power  to  put 
sewers    in    every   street.      Also,   they   were   given  power, 


86         THE   SANITARY   EVOLUTION 

under  certain  circumstances,  to  compel  owners  of  houses, 
"  whether  built  before  or  after  the  commencement  of  this 
Act,"  to  construct  drains  into  the  common  sewer. 

Furthermore,  no  house  was  to  be  built  without  drains 
constructed  to  the  satisfaction  of  the  Vestry,  or  without 
sufficient  sanitary  conveniences,  and  they  were  directed  to 
cause  open  ditches,  sewers,  and  drains  of  an  offensive 
nature,  or  likely  to  be  prejudicial  to  health,  to  be  cleansed, 
filled  up,  and  covered.  And  they  were  required  to  appoint 
scavengers  to  collect  the  dirt  and  rubbish,  or  to  contract  for 
its  removal. 

And  each  of  the  authorities  was  to  appoint  one  or  more 
Medical  Officers  of  Health,  whose  duty  it  should  be  to 
inspect  and  report  periodically  upon  the  sanitary  condition 
of  the  parish  or  district,  and  who  would  act  as  medical 
adviser  to  the  Vestry  in  all  matters  relating  to  the  public 
health,  and  was  also  to  appoint  one  or  more  Inspectors  of 
Nuisances  to  report  as  to  the  existence  of  nuisances  or 
disease,  and  perform  various  other  duties  in  connection  with 
the  sanitary  condition  of  the  parish. 

Provision  was  also  made  for  the  prevention  of  the  sale  of 
food  unfit  for  human  consumption. 

The  Sanitary  Inspector  "might  at  all  reasonable  times 
inspect  and  examine  any  carcase,  meat,  poultry,  game, 
flesh,  fish,  fruit,  vegetables,  corn,  bread,  or  flour  exposed 
for  sale,"  and  in  case  the  same  appeared  to  him  to  be 
unfit  for  such  food  it  might  be  seized,  and  the  magistrate 
might  order  it  to  be  destroyed,  and  the  person  to  whom  it 
belonged,  or  in  whose  custody  it  was  found,  should  on 
conviction  be  liable  to  a  penalty  of  ^610. 

By  "  The  Nuisances  Eemoval  Act  for  England  "  the  word 
"  nuisances  "  was  so  defined  as  to  include  any  accumulation 
or  deposit  which  was  injurious  to  health,  "  any  premises  in 
such  a  state  as  to  be  injurious  to  health,  any  pool,  ditch, 
water-course,  cesspool,  drain,  or  ashpit,  &c.,  so  foul  as  to  be 
a  nuisance  or  injurious  to  health." 

The  right  to  give  notice  to  the  sanitary  authority  of  the 
existence  of  a  nuisance  was  extended,  and  the  process  was 
facilitated.    Notice  might  be  given  to  the  sanitary  authori- 


OF   LONDON  87 

ties  by  the  person  aggrieved,  by  the  sanitary  inspector,  or 
by  a  constable,  or  by  two  inhabitant  householders  of  the 
parish ;  and  certain  powers  of  entry  were  given  to  the  local 
authority  or  their  officer.  The  justices  who  heard  the  case 
might  require  the  person  offending  to  provide  sufficient 
sanitary  accommodation,  means  of  drainage,  or  ventilation, 
to  abate  the  nuisance,  or  to  whitewash,  disinfect,  or  purify 
the  premises  which  were  a  nuisance,  and  could  inflict  a 
fine  for  contravention  of  the  order  of  abatement ;  and,  if 
the  nuisance  proved  to  exist  were  such  as,  in  their  judgment, 
to  render  a  house  unfit  for  human  habitation,  they  were 
given  authority  even  to  prohibit  the  using  thereof  until  it 
was  rendered  fit. 

Furthermore,  as  regarded  certain  noxious  trades,  includ- 
ing slaughter-houses  and  manufactories  causing  effluvia, 
which  were  certified  by  the  Medical  Officer  of  Health  to 
be  a  nuisance,  or  injurious  to  the  health  of  the  inhabi- 
tants of  the  neighbourhood,  the  owner  or  occupier  of  the 
premises  might  be  proceeded  against,  and,  on  conviction, 
fined. 

Against  the  monster  evil  of  "  overcrowding  "  Parliament 
made  an  attempt  to  legislate  specifically,  thus  formally 
recognising  the  necessity  for  dealing  with  it. 

"  "Whenever  the  Medical  Officer  of  Health  shall  certify  to 
the  local  authority  that  any  house  is  so  overcrowded  as  to 
be  dangerous  or  prejudicial  to  the  inhabitants,  and  the 
inhabitants  shall  consist  of  more  than  one  family,  the  local 
authority  shall  cause  proceedings  to  be  taken  before  the 
justices  to  abate  such  overcrowding,  and  the  justices  shall 
thereupon  make  such  order  as  they  may  think  fit,  and  the 
person  permitting  such  overcrowding  shall  forfeit  a  sum  not 
exceeding  forty  shillings." 

And  an  effort  was  also  made  to  curtail  the  practice  of 
living  in  underground  rooms  and  cellars  by  defining  what 
such  a  room  or  cellar  was,  and  making  liable  to  a  penalty 
"  whoever  let,  occupied,  or  knowingly  suffered  to  be  occupied, 
any  room  or  cellar  contrary  to  the  Act."* 

As  money  was  essential  for  the  working  of  the  Acts,  over 
'■-  Section  103  of  Metropolis  Local  Management  Act. 


88         THE   SANITARY  EVOLUTION 

and  above  that  for  which  rates  could  be  levied,  power 
was  given  both  to  the  Metropolitan  Board  of  Works  and 
to  the  Vestries  and  District  Boards  of  Works  to  borrow 
money  on  the  security  of  the  rates,  and  repayable  by 
instalments,  "provided  always  that  no  money  should 
be  so  borrowed  by  Vestries  or  District  Boards  without 
the  previous  sanction  in  writing  of  the  said  Metropolitan 
Board." 

There  were  to  be  auditors  of  the  accounts  of  the 
local  authorities,  who  were  to  be  annually  elected  at  the 
same  time  and  in  the  same  manner  as  members  of 
the  Vestry. 

Finally,  each  Vestry  and  District  Board  of  Works  was 
to  make  to  the  Metropolitan  Board  of  Works  an  annual 
report  of  its  proceedings,  including  a  report  from  the 
Medical  Officer  of  Health ;  and  the  Metropolitan  Board 
was  to  make  an  annual  report  of  its  proceedings,  and 
present  a  copy  to  one  of  Her  Majesty's  Secretaries  of 
State. 

The  third  of  these  Acts,  "  The  Metropolitan  Building 
Act,  1855,"  amended  the  existing  laws  relating  to  build- 
ings in  the  metropolis,  and  laid  down  an  elaborate  code  for 
the  regulation  and  supervision  of  all  new  buildings.  Most 
of  this  code  related  to  the  structure — the  thickness  of 
walls,  &c.,  &c. — and  had  primarily  in  view  the  security  of 
the  house  from  destruction  by  fire.  Only  a  few  sections 
in  the  Act  related  to  the  infinitely  more  important 
matter  of  adequate  provision  for  the  health  of  the 
inhabitants,  and  those  dealt  with  it  in  the  most  niggardly 
way. 

A  minimum  of  one  hundred  square  feet  was  laid  down 
as  satisfying  the  requirements  of  open  space  for  air  and 
ventilation  around  a  dwelling;  a  minimum  of  seven  feet 
in  height  was  held  to  satisfy  the  requirements  of  any  room 
in  a  house. 

And  the  supervision  of  every  building,  and  every  work 
done  in  or  upon  any  building,  was  entrusted  to  the 
"District  Surveyors" — officials  taken  over  by  the  Metro- 
politan Board  from  the  previous  body,  appointed  under  the 


OF   LONDON  89 

Building  Act  of  1844,  which  had  distinguished  itself  by  its 
incapacity. 

These  Acts  practically  laid  down  the  framework  of  the 
machinery  of  the  sanitary  government  of  London,  and 
struck  the  first  real  blow  at  the  roots  of  the  insanitary 
condition  of  the  metropolis. 

The  callous  indifference  and  inaction  of  generations  had 
left  not  a  mere  Augean  stable  to  be  cleansed,  but  a  great 
city  over  100  square  miles  in  extent  and  containing  two  and 
a  half  millions  of  people,  and  the  new  authorities,  when  they 
came  into  existence,  had  not  only  to  meet  the  daily  needs  of 
a  vast  existing  population,  but  to  make  good  the  neglect  of 
centuries,  and  to  build  up  a  sound  and  effective  working 
system  of  sanitary  administration. 

The  task  lying  before  them  was  one  of  enormous 
proportions,  for  on  them  rested  the  responsibility  of 
effecting  the  sanitary  redemption  of  the  millions  of  the 
metropolis — as  well  as  the  infinitely  greater  duty  of  safe- 
guarding future  generations  from  similar  sufferings  and 
wrongs. 

It  was,  moreover,  a  task  of  almost  superhuman  difficulty, 
for  arrayed  against  reform  and  amelioration  were  the 
powerful  forces  of  "vested  rights  in  filth  and  dirt." 
And  adding  to  the  difficulty  was  the  huge  inert  mass  of 
ignorance,  and  poverty,  and  helplessness  of  masses  of  the 
people. 

One  principle  contained  in  these  Acts  was  of  pre-eminent 
consequence — namely,  the  responsibility  of  "  ownership." 
Hitherto  owners  had  effectually  escaped  all  responsibility 
as  regarded  the  sanitary  state  of  their  property,  and  had 
dealt  with  their  property  exactly  as  they  pleased,  and 
regardless  of  the  consequences  to  any  one  but  themselves. 
Parliament  now  formally  recognised  and  definitely  laid 
down  the  principle  that  the  "owner"  was  the  person 
responsible  for  the  insanitary  condition  of  his  property; 
and  in  addition  declared  that  individuals  would  not  in  future 
be  allowed  to  deal  with  their  property  in  such  a  manner 
as  to  cause  injury  to  the  public  health. 
But    declaration    of    principles    was    one     thing — their 


90         THE   SANITARY  EVOLUTION 

enforcement  was  another.  Unfortunately,  those  who  were 
charged  with  their  enforcement  were  too  often  the  persons 
directly  interested  in  resisting  reform,  and  in  very 
many  instances,  where  even  a  partial  enforcement  of 
these  principles  was  attempted,  the  action  was  resented 
and  vigorously  resisted. 

The  Metropolis  Local  Management  Act  came  into  force 
on  January  1,  1856,  and  the  Central  Authority — the 
Metropolitan  Board  of  Works — and  the  local  authorities 
— Vestries  and  District  Boards — having  been  duly  elected, 
entered  upon  their  duties. 

The  first  and  most  urgent  work  which  the  Metropolitan 
Board  was  charged  to  carry  out  was  the  main  drainage 
of  the  metropolis,  and  at  the  outset,  the  new  Board  directed 
its  efforts  almost  exclusively  to  the  highly  technical  task 
of  devising  and  considering  and  adopting  plans  for  the 
construction  of  a  great  system  of  sewerage  which  should 
intercept  the  flow  of  sewage  into  the  Thames,  and  should 
convey  it  by  other  means  to  a  safe  distance  below  London, 
whence  it  might  flow  into  the  sea. 

Any  plan  had,  however,  to  be  approved  by  the  Chief 
Commissioner  of  Works.  To  him  the  Board  submitted 
three  plans,  but  none  of  them  received  such  approval,  and 
the  matter  was  at  a  deadlock  until  1858,  when  an  Act  was 
passed  removing  the  veto  of  the  Chief  Commissioner  of 
Works,  and  at  the  same  time  giving  the  Metropolitan  Board 
power  to  raise  a  loan  of  £3,000,000,  which  up  to  that  time 
it  had  no  power  to  do. 

Within  a  week  from  the  passing  of  that  Act,  the  Board 
determined  on  a  plan,  and  began  arrangements  for  carrying 
it  out. 

The  plan  adopted  was  to  intercept  all  the  sewage  flowing 
into  the  Thames  within  the  area  of  the  metropolis,  and  to 
convey  it  by  sewers  to  a  distance,  and  to  discharge  it  into 
the  river  at  such  a  condition  of  tide  as  should  take  it  still 
further  out,  so  as  not  to  return  and  become  a  nuisance  to 
the  metropolis.  The  proposed  interception  on  the  north 
side  was  by  three  main  sewers,  discharging  at  Barking — 
the  upper,  the  middle,  and  the  lower,  with  branches ;  on 


OF   LONDON  91 

the  south  side,  by  two  main  sewers,  discharging  at 
Crossness. 

As  the  result  of  the  Act  there  had  been  transferred  to  the 
Board  106  miles  of  main  sewers  on  the  north  side  of  the 
Thames  with  33  outlets  into  the  river,  and  60  miles  on 
the  south  side  with  31  outlets.  A  considerable  number 
of  these  were  offensive  open  sewers,  others  were  defective 
in  design  and  construction,  whilst  all  required  reconstruction 
to  make  them  effective,  and  to  fit  them  for  connection  with 
the  new  system. 

The  Central  Authority  had  thus  a  heavy  task  before  it, 
and  one  which  it  would  take  years  to  perform. 

The  local  authorities,  with  simpler  duties  to  perform, 
were  able  to  get  quicker  to  work. 

They  appointed  "  Surveyors  "  in  each  parish  to  look  after 
the  multifarious  duties  in  connection  with  the  paving, 
lighting,  and  cleansing  of  the  streets,  with  scavenging,  and 
the  removal  of  house  and  trade  refuse,  and  with  the  con- 
struction and  maintenance  of  local  sewers  and  drains. 
In  a  sort  of  way  some  of  this  work  had  been  done  by  the 
previous  petty  authorities ;  parts  of  it,  therefore,  were  more 
or  less  familiar,  and  so  not  wholly  new. 

But  wholly  new,  and  of  very  great  importance,  were  the 
appointments  which  the  new  local  authorities  had  to  make 
for  their  districts  of  a  Medical  Officer  of  Health,  and  of  one 
or  more  Inspectors  of  Nuisances  to  help  him. 

The  duties  of  the  Medical  Officer  of  Health  were  carefully 
prescribed  by  the  Act.  He  was  to  inspect  and  report 
periodically  upon  the  sanitary  condition  of  the  parish ; 
to  ascertain  the  existence  of  diseases  increasing  the  rate 
of  mortality  ;  to  point  out  the  existence  of  any  causes  likely 
to  originate  or  maintain  such  diseases,  as  well  as  to  suggest 
the  most  efficacious  mode  of  checking  and  preventing  their 
spread,  and  various  other  important  sanitary  duties. 

These  appointments  were  duly  made,  and  some  appoint- 
ments also  of  Inspectors  of  Nuisances. 

Herein  was  involved  the  clear  recognition  of  another 
principle  of  the  utmost  consequence — that  of  inspection — 
a  principle  very  naturally  held  in  abhorrence  by  all  sanitary 


92         THE   SANITARY   EVOLUTION 

misdoers.  It  had  previously  been  put  spasmodically  into 
operation,  and  with  the  best  effects,  on  the  occasions  when 
Asiatic  cholera  was  approaching  or  raging  in  the  country, 
but  when  the  panic  had  subsided  it  was  promptly  dropped, 
and  every  one  was  practically  left  free  to  commit  any 
sanitary  enormity  with  impunity.  Henceforth,  however, 
there  would  be  the  contingency  of  being  found  out  for 
breaches  of  sanitary  laws,  and  the  eye  of  the  law  would, 
at  least  theoretically,  be  upon  sanitary  law  breakers. 

The  majority  of  the  Medical  Officers  of  Health  entered 
energetically  on  their  work,  and  thenceforward  a  constant 
light  was  thrown  upon  the  sanitary  condition  of  various 
parts  of  the  metropolis  by  men  who  lived  in  the  closest  and 
most  unceasing  contact  with  the  devastating  evils  afflicting 
the  masses  of  the  people.  All  were  not  equally  efficient  or 
energetic — all  were  not  equally  communicative — but  the 
reports  of  many  of  them  are  full  of  interesting  facts,  of 
acute  and  instructive  comment,  and  of  wise  counsel ;  and 
though  holding  office  at  the  pleasure  of  their  employers, 
many  of  these  officers  were  courageously  independent  and 
outspoken  in  their  criticism  and  advice.* 

Unfortunately,  the  reports  had  practically  no  circulation 
beyond  the  members  of  the  bodies  to  whom  they  were 
made,  if  even  they  were  read  by  them,  and  the  recommen- 
dations made  therein  were  too  often  absolutely  ignored 
by  those  bodies,  or,  for  reasons  of  self-interest,  opposed. 

To  us  now,  however,  these  reports  are  of  the  greatest 
value,  being  in  many  respects  the  most  valuable  official 
records  existing  on  the  subject.  We  learn  from  them, 
better  than  we  do  from  any  other  source,  as  regards  the 
various  parishes  of  London,  the  nature,  and  in  some 
measure  the  extent  of  the  evils  which  existed,  and  the  causes 
of  those  evils  ;  we  find  in  them  opinions  expressed  and 
reiterated  as  to  the  best  way  of  remedying  those  evils,  and 


'i'  There  is  in  the  library  of  the  London  County  Council  an  almost 
complete  set  of  these  annual  reports  inherited  from  the  Metropolitan 
Board  of  Works.  Unless  those  sent  to  the  Secretary  of  State,  as 
directed  by  the  Act,  have  been  preserved,  there  is  no  other  collection 
in  existence. 


OF   LONDON  93 

accounts  of  the  results  of  the  efforts  made  to  remove  or  cure 
those  evils. 

The  reports  set  forth  facts  demonstrating  the  appalling 
misery  which  the  great  masses  of  the  people  of  the  metro- 
polis endured ;  the  loathsome  foulness  in  which  vast 
numbers  of  them  habitually  lived,  and  were  allowed  to  live ; 
the  dreadful  hardships  they  had  to  suffer  ;  the  fearful  moral 
and  physical  contamination  they  underwent ;  the  terrible 
death-roll — in  great  part  preventable — and  the  ten  or 
twenty-fold  larger  roll  of  victims  of  preventable  illnesses 
and  epidemics,  with  the  consequent  poverty  which  sickness 
entailed. 

We  can  bit  by  bit  piece  together  from  these  reports 
a  realistic  picture  of  the  sanitary  condition  of  London  as 
a  whole  during  the  successive  periods  of  the  latter  half 
of  the  nineteenth  century,  and  we  can  discern  the  action 
of  the  silent,  steady,  and  irresistible  economic  forces  which 
unintermittently  dominated  that  condition.  North  and 
south  in  the  metropolis,  east  and  west,  it  was  all  the 
same,  varying  only  in  intensity,  in  extent,  and,  in  some 
degree,  in  form ;  a  harrowing  and  almost  incredible  story. 
And  the  remarkable  concurrence  of  testimony  from  men 
acting  independently  of  each  other,  and  resident  in  wholly 
different  parts  of  London,  justifies  the  fullest  confidence  in 
statements  uniformly  harmonious. 

The  metropolis  is  so  large  a  place,  with  such  marked 
differences  between  its  component  parts,  differences  in 
situation,  and  physical  characteristics,  and  degree  of  de- 
velopment— differences  in  wealth  and  poverty,  and  in  the 
occupations  of  their  inhabitants — that  the  attempt  to  trace 
any  special  branch  of  its  history  is  beset  with  the  greatest 
difficulties. 

Especially  is  this  the  case  when  the  subject  treated  of  is 
so  complex  and  comprehensive  as  that  of  the  public  health. 

It  is  manifest  that  all  parts  of  the  metropolis  cannot 
be  described  simultaneously — whilst  to  go  "  seriatim  "  into 
the  history  of  the  public  health  in  each  separate  locality 
would,  by  the  very  weight  of  detail,  fail  to  convey  an  im- 
pression of  the  subject  as  a  whole. 


94         THE   SANITARY   EVOLUTION 

The  same  objections  apply  to  a  "  seriatim "  historic 
treatment  of  the  different  branches  of  the  pubHc  health. 

Moreover,  the  action  of  the  central  authority  has  also  to 
be  described  in  its  proper  place. 

And,  still  more  important,  the  action  of  Parliament, 
and  the  principal  Acts  of  Parliament  relating  to  matters 
affecting  the  public  health,  either  directly  or  administratively. 

How  then  can  the  subject  be  best  treated  with  the  object 
of  presenting  the  main  facts  of  the  sanitary  evolution  of 
London,  and  deducing  from  them  the  lessons  of  experience 
and  guidance  for  the  future  ? 

Probably  by  a  sort  of  compromise  between  these  two 
methods — taking  groups  of  districts  instead  of  separate 
districts — and  groups  of  matters  pertaining  to  the  public 
health,  instead  of  separate  subjects — and,  furthermore, 
dealing  with  the  whole  subject  in  certain  definite  periods. 
Groups  of  parishes  have  already,  for  certain  health  purposes, 
been  classified  into  central,  eastern,  northern,  western,  and 
southern.     That  classification  can  be  adhered  to  here. 

And  inasmuch  as  almost  the  only  reliable  statistics  as 
to  many  matters  relating  to  the  public  health  are  those 
afforded  every  decade  by  the  census,  the  narrative  can  best 
be  treated  by  taking  decennial  periods,  and  utilising  the 
reliable  information  of  the  census  for  the  deduction  of 
conclusions  which  on  any  other  basis  might  be  unsound. 
This  method,  then,  though  in  many>  respects  imperfect,  is 
adopted  as  probably  the  best  for  tracing  the  sanitary 
evolution  of  the  great  metropolis. 

Foremost  among  the  central  group,  but  standing  by  itself, 
and  in  the  main  outside  the  scope  of  the  legislation,  was  the 
"  City."  To  the  description  of  its  condition  already  given 
nothing  need  be  added  beyond  the  statement  of  the  fact 
that  the  great  economic  forces  at  work  therein  were  dis- 
playing their  results  in  the  "  City  "  itself  in  very  striking 
manner. 

Under  their  potent  influence  the  population  there  had 
begun  to  rapidly  decHne.  In  1851  it  had  been  127,533. 
In  1861  it  had  come  down  to  111,784.  The  number  of 
inhabited  houses  was  likewise  rapidly  declining.     In  1851 


OF   LONDON  95 

there  had  been  14,483 ;  in  1861  there  were  13,218.  Under 
the  irresistible  demands  for  greater  business  and  trading 
accommodation,  the  inhabited  houses  there  were  being 
rapidly  converted  to  the  more  profitable  purpose  of  business 
offices,  or  warehouses. 

As  the  number  of  business  premises  and  shops  increased 
in  a  locality,  so  did  the  better-to-do  residents  leave  it, 
and  migrate  to  pleasanter  or  more  healthy  localities.  Some 
of  the  houses  thus  vacated  became  promptly  tenanted  by 
numerous  families  of  a  lower,  or  even'  the  lowest  classes ; 
until  they  too  were  converted  to  business  purposes, 
and  their  inhabitants  once  more  turned  adrift  to  seek 
other  habitation.  Some  of  these  people  secured  in  the 
neighbouring  parishes  residence  in  one  or  part  of  one  of 
those  jerry-built  and  insanitary  constructions  which  land- 
owners and  builders  were  erecting  as  rapidly  as  possible 
upon  any  unbuilt  ground  which  they  owned,  or  which  they 
could  lay  hands  upon — the  majority  contented  themselves 
with  squeezing  somehow  into  tenement  houses  already 
overcrowded. 

It  cannot  be  too  constantly  borne  in  mind  that  this  was 
one  of  the  great  forces  in  unceasing  action  in  the  metropolis, 
extending  its  sphere  of  action  step  by  step,  and  stage  by 
stage,  and  that  as  years  went  on,  the  various  districts  of  the 
metropolis  were,  one  and  all,  in  varying  degree,  subject  to 
the  accompaniments  and  consequences  of  its  different  stages 
of  growth.  And  the  transition  was  further  aggravated  by 
the  natural  increase  of  population,  and  by  another  great 
force — the  unceasing  flow  of  immigrants  into  the  metro- 
polis, the  majority  in  search  of  work,  others  of  food  given 
by  charitable  people,  or  of  any  other  chance  good  thing  or 
adventure  that  might  turn  up. 

And  so,  on  January  1,  1856,  the  new  local  authorities 
of  the  metropolis  began  their  great  task.  And  about  forty 
Medical  Officers  of  Health  began  to  examine  into  and 
inspect  their  respective  districts,  and  to  inform  or  advise 
their  respective  authorities. 

What  did  these  men  find  when  they  got  well  into  their 
work  ?    What  opinions  did  they  form  as  to  the  fearful  facts 


96         THE   SANITARY  EVOLUTION 

with  which  they  were  promptly  brought  face  to  face,  and 
the  great  social  problems  with  which  they  were  confronted? 
And  what  did  they  and  their  employers,  the  Vestries  and 
District  Boards,  do  to  carry  out  the  legislation  which 
Parliament  had  at  last  enacted  ? 

The  first  impression  of  one  of  them  was  that  the  possessor 
of  the  office  of  Medical  Officer  of  Health  *  could  never 
become  popular,  "  his  functions  bringing  him  into  constant 
collision  with  the  apparent  interests  of  many  influential 
persons  ;  " — in  other  words,  with  vested  interests. 

Others  took  a  less  personal  and  wider  view  of  their  duties. 
Thus  one  of  them  f  wrote  : — 

"  We  have  to  remodel  an  old  system — a  system  on  which 
has  been  for  centuries  engrafted  by  slow  degrees  all  the 
undesirable  elements  we  now  wish  to  eradicate." 

Another  t  was  impressed  by  the  vast  amount  to  be  done 
even  in  his  own  parish  : — 

"  From  what  I  daily  witness,  I  make  bold  to  state  that 
this  Vestry  has  a  Herculean  task  to  perform  to  abate  all  the 
nuisances  of  Rotherhithe ;  nuisances  which  have  grown 
uninterrupted  for  ages,  and  have  become  inveterate  customs 
with  many." 

If  it  was  a  Herculean  task  in  one  parish,  and  that  a  small 
one,  what  was  the  task  for  the  whole  of  the  metropolis  ? 

Another,  §  after  a  few  years'  experience  of  the  working  of 
the  Act,  summed  up  the  actual  position — the  very  kernel 
of  the  case — when  he  wrote  : — 

"  The  working  of  the  Metropolis  Management  Act  might 
often  be  characterised  as  a  war  of  the  community  against 
individuals  for  the  public  good." 

And  that  is  what,  undoubtedly,  it  amounted  it.  Hitherto 
the  "  individuals  "  had  had  their  own  way  unchallenged  and 
unchecked,  and  countless  thousands  of  the  community  had 
been  sent  to  their  doom.  Now,  in  a  sort  of  way,  it  was  to 
be  a  war — a  very  just  and  necessary,  and  on  the  part  of  the 
community  a  bloodless  war — to  enforce  upon  land-owners, 
and  house-owners  and  house-middlemen,  obedience  to  the 
principle  that  "  property  has  its  duties  as  well  as  its  rights," 

*  St.  Giles.  t  Fulham.  |  Rotherhithe.  §  Hackney. 


OF   LONDON  97 

and  that  those  individual  rights  should  not  be  exercised — as 
they  had  hitherto  so  cruelly  been — to  the  mortal  injury  of 
vast  numbers  of  the  community. 

And  there  was  yet  another  aspect  of  their  work  being  a 
war.  It  was  war  against  disease  and  filth,  and  all  the  causes 
of  insanitation,  and  against  the  consequent  human  suffering 
and  misery,  and  degradation,  in  some  of  the  very  worst 
forms. 

That,  unfortunately,  was  a  never-endable  war.  Great 
successes  might  be  won — complete  and  final  victory  never. 

The  central  group  of  parishes  and  districts  outside  the 
"City" — and  lying  to  the  north  and  west  of  the  "City," 
consisted  of  St.  Luke,  Clerkenwell,  Holborn,  St.  Giles',  the 
Strand,  and  St.  Martin-in-the-Fields,  with  a  population  of 
close  upon  288,000 — about  one-ninth  of  that  of  the  metropolis. 
Already  in  four  of  these,  under  the  influence  of  the  economic 
forces  already  described,  the  population  was  decreasing. 
Every  portion  of  this  central  group  was  densely  populated, 
and  it  contained  two  of  the  most  crowded  of  all  the  areas 
of  the  metropolis — the  Strand,  which  stood  highest,  and  St. 
Luke's,  which  had  "  the  questionable  distinction  "  of  being 
the  second  most  densely  populated  parish.  In  St.  Giles', 
which  was  **  amongst  the  oldest,  most  densely  peopled,  and 
most  deteriorated  portions  of  London,"  the  population  in 
1851  "  did  not  appear  capable  of  further  increase,  the  district 
being  incapable  of  expansion  either  by  packing  closer  or  by 
the  addition  of  new  houses." 

The  eastern  group  consisted  of  the  parishes  or  districts 
of    Shoreditch,    Whitechapel,    Bethnal   Green,    Mile-End- 
Old-Town,  St.  George-in-the-East,  Limehouse,  and  Poplar. 
In  Whitechapel  the  population  was  stationary ;  in  all  the 
others  increasing. 

The  northern  group  of  parishes  and  districts  consisted  of 
Hackney,  Islington,  St.  Pancras,  St.  Marylebone,  and 
Hampstead. 

In  every  one  of  these  the  population  was  on  the  increase, 
slightly  in  St.  Marylebone,  very  rapidly  in  most  of  them, 
notably  so  in  St.  Pancras  and  Islington. 

The  western  group  consisted  of  Westminster,  St.  James', 


98         THE   SANITARY  EVOLUTION 

St.  George  (Hanover  Square),  Paddington,  Kensington, 
Fulham,  and  Chelsea. 

In  St.  James'  the  population  was  decreasing  (having 
reached  its  apogee  in  1841) ;  in  Westminster  it  was  slightly 
increasing ;  in  all  the  others  rapidly  increasing. 

The  southern  group,  with  a  population  roughly  of  about 
700,000,  consisted  of  the  whole  of  that  portion  of  the 
metropolis  which  was  situate  on  the  south  side  of  the 
river.  Beginning  on  the  west,  there  was  Wandsworth 
(which  included  Battersea),  then  Lambeth,  Camberwell, 
Lewisham,  with  Woolwich  and  Plumstead  on  the  extreme 
east,  then  Greenwich,  Rotherhithe,  Bermondsey,  St.  Mary, 
Newington,  St.  George-the-Martyr,  Southwark,  St.  Saviour, 
Southwark,  and  St.  Olave,  in  Southwark. 

Many  of  these  were  still  mostly  country. 

The  various  parishes  and  districts  of  the  metropolis 
differed  remarkably  in  their  rate  of  increase  of  population. 
In  all,  the  number  of  births  was  in  excess  of  the  number 
of  deaths,  but  as  this  excess  in  no  way  accounted  for  the 
increase  in  many  of  them,  the  rest  of  the  increase  could 
only  be  accounted  for  by  immigration — immigration  either 
from  other  parishes  or  from  outside  London. 

And  as  it  was  with  population  so  it  was  with  the  houses 
in  which  the  people  dwelt. 

In  most  of  the  central  parts  of  London,  houses  crowded 
every  available  scrap  of  land,  squares  and  open  spaces  being 
few  and  far  between.  Where  there  should  have  been  streets  of 
good  width,  there  were  narrow  lanes  of  houses ;  where  there 
should  have  been  thoroughfares,  there  were  cul-de-sacs; 
where  there  should  have  been  space  for  through  currents 
of  air  and  for  light,  there  were  brick  walls  stopping  both 
light  and  air. 

Figures  giving  so  many  houses  to  the  acre  convey  little 
actual  idea  of  the  density  of  houses.  Far  more  suggestive 
is  such  a  statement  as  that  made  by  the  Medical  Officer  of 
Health  in  Limehouse  (1861)  that:  "There  would  be  no 
difficulty  in  marking  out  courts  and  alleys  where  the 
problem  would  seem  to  have  been  with  the  originators, 
how  to  enable  the  greatest  number  of  people  to  live  in  the 


OF  LONDON  99 

smallest  amount  of  space."  Or  the  description  of  St.  Giles',* 
where,  "  exclusive  of  mews,  there  may  be  counted  on  the 
map  upwards  of  seventy  streets,  courts,  and  alleys,  in  which 
there  is  no  thoroughfare,  or  which  are  approached  by 
passages  under  houses."  Nor  is  it  a  matter  of  surprise 
that  this  state  of  things  should  have  come  about,  when 
hitherto  there  had  been  practically  no  check  whatever  upon 
building. 

"It  is  to  be  regretted,"  wrote  the  Medical  Officer  of 
Health  for  Mile-End-Old-Town  about  his  own  district 
(1856),  "that  the  great  increase  in  the  number  of  habita- 
tions should  have  been  allowed  to  take  place  without  some 
municipal  direction,  or  some  supervision  competent  to 
supply  its  place ;  the  general  salubrity  of  the  district  would 
certainly  have  been  better  secured.  .  .  .  But  every  owner 
of  a  piece  of  ground  has  had  the  opportunity  of  making  the 
most  of  it  for  his  -  own  advantage  and  in  real  opposition  to 
the  public  good." 

In  nearly  all  the  non-central  parts  of  London  houses  were 
increasing  rapidly. 

"  Bricklayers  are  spreading  the  webs  and  meshes  of  houses 
vdth  such  fearful  rapidity  in  every  direction  that  people  are 
being  gradually  confined  within  narrow  prisons  only  open  at 
the  top  for  the  admission  of  what  would  be  air  if  it  were 
not  smoke. 

"  Suburban  open  spaces  are  being  entombed  in  brick  and 
mortar  mausoleums  for  the  suffocation  as  well  as  for  the 
accommodation  of  an  increasing  populace."  t 

Thus  in  Islington  there  were  13,500  houses  in  1851,  and 
20,700  in  1861 ;  in  Kensington  6,100  in  1851,  and  9,400 
in  1861. 

But  what  evoked  comment  was,  that  the  evils  of  one  sort 
or  another  connected  with  the  crowding  of  houses  together 
were  being  perpetuated. 

"  Not  only  is  it  to  be  deplored,"  wrote  the  Medical  Officer 
of  Health  for  Whitechapel,  "  that  the  houses  in  most  of  the 
poor  neighbourhoods  are  already  too  closely  packed  together, 

*  Medical  Officer  of  Health,  1856. 

t  "  Lungs  for  London,"  Household  Words,  vol.  i.  p.  45,  1850. 


100       THE   SANITARY  EVOLUTION 

but  the  evil  is  increasing  :  for  wherever  there  is  a  vacant 
spot  of  ground,  more  houses  are  built,  thereby  still  further 
diminishing  the  healthiness  of  those  already  existing " 
(1860-1). 

From  Hampstead — still  but  little  built  on — came  a  com- 
plaint of  "  the  tendency  among  builders  to  cover  the  new 
ground  as  thickly  and  at  as  little  cost  as  practicable." 

In  Wandsworth  "  houses  were  erected  and  new  streets 
formed  without  due  regard  to  sanitary  requirements,  and  in 
situations  where  good  drainage  seems  impossible." 

In  Fulham,  "  cottages  out  of  number  were  constructed  in 
the  excavations  of  old  brick  fields  with  the  soft  refuse  of 
bricks,  habitations  run  in  swamps  and  quagmires,  and  their 
foundations  three  parts  of  the  year  sopped  with  surface 
water." 

Efficient  sewerage  was  so  manifestly  the  basis  of  all  wise 
sanitation  that  the  want  of  sewers,  and  the  abominable 
condition  of  those  which  existed,  were  general  subjects  of 
complaint. 

The  Strand  boasted  of  being  "  one  of  the  best  sewered 
districts  in  the  metropolis,"  which,  however,  was  not  saying 
much  for  it.  And  in  St.  Giles'  the  sewerage  was  stated  to 
be  good,  and  "much  above  the  average  of  the  town." 

But  such  reports  were  quite  exceptional.  In  Hackney, 
the  principal  sewer  was  the  former  Hackney  Brook,  which, 
from  the  increase  of  the  population,  and  the  drainage  from 
other  sewers,  houses,  cemeteries,  and  cattle-market,  had 
become  a  foul  open  ditch — with  very  trifling  exception 
wholly  uncovered — and  "  emitting  pestiferous  noxious 
effluvia." 

In  St.  Marylebone,  the  sewers,  themselves  insufficient  for 
the  requirements  of  a  growing  population  (1858),  were,  in 
many  cases,  so  shallow  as  to  cause  rather  than  remove  evil, 
for  in  certain  places  they  flooded  the  basements,  and  in 
more  than  one  house  was  witnessed  the  curious  spectacle 
of  the  daily  use  of  pumps  to  remove  the  foul  liquids,  as  in 
leaking  ships. 

In  Paddington  (1857-8),  "the  principles  of  good  town 
drainage  were  completely  ignored.     The  sewers  were  those 


OF  LONDON  101 

which  had  been  constructed  at  intervals,  previous  to  1846, 
in  a  piecemeal  and  unsatisfactory  manner,  as  the  thorough- 
fares were  formed,  vnthout  any  regard  to  the  requirements 
of  the  adjoining  streets."  The  general  direction  of  these 
sewers  was  "  extremely  defective.  Numbers  of  them  have 
a  fall  towards  the  summit  or  highest  level  of  the  street 
through  which  they  pass ;  the  bottoms  are  very  irregular, 
running  up  and  down  and  forming  successions  of  hills  and 
hollows." 

In  Fulham,  there  existed  scarcely  the  trace  of  a  main 
sewer,  open  sewers  and  filthy  ditches,  conveying  some  part 
of  the  sewage  to  the  river,  the  rest  remaining  in  the 
cesspools. 

In  Hammersmith,  not  only  were  sewers  and  ditches  in  a 
most  fearful  state  of  nuisance,  but  there  was  also  "  a  morass 
of  several  acres  in.  extent,  having  no  outlet,  which  received 
the  sewage  from  a  large  area,  the  noxious  emanations 
from  which  must  be  regarded  as  highly  detrimental  to 
health." 

On  the  south  side  of  the  river  matters  were  still  worse. 
The  greater  number  of  the  southern  districts  were  situate 
nearly  on  the  same  level  as  high-water  mark,  if  not  indeed 
below  it,  and  they  differed  from  the  other  districts  of 
London  in  their  marshy  character,  their  low  level,  and 
in  the  want  of  proper  drainage  dependent  on  that  low 
level.  The  whole  district  suffered  under  the  effects  of  a 
tide-locked,  pent-up  system  of  sewerage. 

In  Greenwich,  a  very  large  number  of  streets  were  with- 
out main  sewers. 

In  St.  Mary,  Newington,  "the  great  fact  meeting  us  at 
every  turn  has  been  the  large  number  of  streets  without 
main  sewers  therein." 

Eotherhithe,  which  lay  from  four  to  seven  feet  below  high 
water,  was  exceptionally  bad.  The  largest  portion  of  the 
parish  had  no  drainage  whatever.  There  were  about  fifteen 
miles  of  open  ditches  which  had  been  converted  into  open 
sewers,  called  in  some  official  documents  "  Stygian  pools," 
and  serving  "the  double  debt  to  pay  of  watercourse  and 
cesspool."     Among  the  ditches  "one  of  the  foulest  in  the 


102       THE   SANITARY  EVOLUTION 

whole  neighbourhood  of  London "  was  the  King's  Mills 
stream,  about  one  and  a  half  miles  long,  which  had  not  been 
cleansed  for  ten  years.  The  sewer  in  Paradise  Eow  was  "in 
reality  not  a  sewer,"  but  "an  elongated  cesspool  a  mile  in 
length,"  and  during  twenty  hours  daily  it  was  waterlogged. 
The  very  boundary  line  of  the  parish  for  a  long  distance 
was  "  a  wide,  filthy,  black,  open  sewer." 

In  part  consequent  on  the  lack  of  sewers,  house  drainage 
was  either  non-existent  or  fearfully  defective.  In  every 
part  of  the  metropolis  the  evil  was  evident. 

In  Clerkenw^ell  the  "  drainage  was  either  none  or  very  im- 
perfect. Numberless  houses  do  not  drain  into  the  sewers." 
In  St.  Martin-in-the-Fields,  "  in  the  old  streets  and  courts 
the  drainage  was  the  same  as  it  was  when  the  houses  were 
built,  some  as  far  back  as  the  reign  of  Elizabeth,  and  many 
in  that  of  Charles  I." 

In  St.  George-in-the-East  (1856),  "  it  is  astonishing  how 
few  houses  have  availed  themselves  of  the  sewers," 

In  Paddington,  "  the  condition  of  the  house-drains  is  far 
worse  than  that  of  the  sewers.  They  include  every  possible 
variety  of  geometrical  construction,  from  a  circle  to  a 
square.  Some  have  fallen  in ;  others  are  choked  with 
filth." 

In  Lewisham  (1856-7),  "  in  several  places  there  are 
reported  to  be  nuisances  of  the  usual  character  .  .  .  cess- 
pools, no  water,  &c. — stinking  ditches  filled  with  sewage 
which  can  get  no  further — every  abomination,  and  people 
apparently  doing  what  they  pleased  as  regards  getting  rid  of 
their  filth." 

Nor  was  it  only  in  the  poorer  parts  of  London  that  the 
house-drainage  was  bad.  In  St.  James'  (Westminster)  the 
Medical  Officer  of  Health  wrote  (1861)  :— 

"  For  the  last  two  or  three  years  the  worst  cases  of 
neglected  drainage  have  not  been  in  houses  inhabited  by 
the  poor,  but  in  those  inhabited  by  the  wealthier  classes 
of  the  community.  It  is  to  me  frequently  a  matter  of 
great  astonishment  to  find  how  regardless  those  classes 
are,  whose  circumstances  can  command  every  comfort  of 
life,  of  the  sources  of  disease  and  death.     This  is  not  only 


OF  LONDON  103 

seen  in  neglect  of  attention  to  drainage,  but  also  in  the 
neglect  of  ventilation." 

Nor  was  care  being  taken  to  provide  drainage  even  to 
houses  which  were  in  course  of  erection.  The  Medical 
Officer  of  Health  for  Hackney,  which  was  a  growing 
district,  reported  (1858-9) : — 

"Building  operations  have  recently  been  carried  on  with 
considerable  activity,  numerous  new  streets  have  been  laid 
out  and  built  on.  .  .  .  Unfortunately  there  have  not  been, 
and  there  are  not  at  the  present  time,  any  means  whereby 
the  construction  of  proper  drainage  works  could  be  enforced 
before  the  erection  of  buildings  along  the  line  of  new 
streets,  and  the  consequence  has  been  that,  to  avoid  the 
heavy  cost  of  constructing  effective  sewers,  the  drainage 
works  have  been  almost  everywhere  but  very  imperfectly 
carried  out,  and  in  many  cases  not  even  a  brick  has  been 
laid  for  these  purposes." 

The  internal  condition  of  the  houses  was  very  bad. 

In  Clerkenwell,  where  there  were  over  7,000  houses, 
many  of  them  were  "quite  unfit  for  human  habitation"; 
not  more  than  one-third  were  "in  a  satisfactory  state." 
In  Bethnal  Green  there  were  "  disease-inviting  houses  " ; 
in  Whitechapel,  such  was  the  bad  condition  of  many  of 
the  2,734  houses  which  were  inspected,  that  "they  ought 
to  be  condemned  as  unfit  for  human  habitation." 

In  St.  George-in-the-East,  "  the  sanitary  condition  of 
the  dwelling-houses  is  deplorable." 

Lambeth  contained  a  greater  number  of  inhabited  houses 
than  any  other  parish  in  the  metropolis — nearly  22,000. 
The  Medical  Officer  of  Health,  after  the  very  limited 
inquiry  possible  within  the  first  year  of  work,  reported 
the  unwholesome  condition  of  1,638  of  them. 

From  figures  such  as  these — and  they  related  to  only  a 
tiny  fragment  of  the  whole — one  can  get  some  measure  of 
the  way  the  sanitary  condition  of  the  houses  throughout 
London  had  been  neglected,  and  the  indifference  of  the 
owners  to  the  condition  of  the  premises  they  let. 

Mention  has  been  made  of  the  vast  number  of  cesspools 
which    existed    in    London    before    the    passing    of    the 


104       THE   SANITARY  EVOLUTION 

Metropolis  Local  Management  Act.  The  investigations 
of  the  various  Medical  Officers  of  Health  soon  demon- 
strated that  the  previous  estimates  of  their  prevalence, 
and  of  the  disastrous  consequences  they  entailed,  had 
been  in  no  way  exaggerated. 

Their  disastrous  results  were  at  once  recognised. 

The  Medical  Officer  of  Health  for  Whitechapel,  in  his 
report  for  1858,  wrote : — 

"  I  must  now  direct  your  attention  to  the  most  important 
subject,  in  a  sanitary  point  of  view,  which  can  be  brought 
before  you.  I  allude  to  the  existence  of  cesspools,  more 
especially  such  as  are  situated  either  in  the  cellars  of 
inhabited  houses,  or  in  the  small  backyards,  which  are 
surrounded  by  the  walls  of  houses  filled  with  lodgers  .  .  . 

"  No  cesspool  ought  to  be  allowed  to  exist  in  London,  for 
wherever  there  is  a  cesspool,  the  ground  in  its  vicinity  is 
completely  saturated  with  the  foul  and  putrefying  liquid 
contents,  the  stench  from  which  is  continually  rising  up 
and  infecting  the  air  which  is  breathed  by  the  people,  and 
in  some  instances  poisoning  the  water  which  is  drawn 
from  the  public  pumps.  .  .  . 

"I  am  thoroughly  convinced  by  the  result  of  experience, 
that  the  existence  of  cesspools  and  overcrowding  are  the 
chief  causes  of  ill-health." 

And  the  Medical  Officer  of  Health  for  Camberwell  wrote : — 

".  .  .  Of  all  the  abominations  which  disgrace  and  pollute 
the  dwellings  of  the  poor,  the  imperfect,  rarely  emptied,  and 
overflowing  cesspools  are  by  far  the  worst  .  .  .  they  not 
merely  poison  the  atmosphere  without,  but  pour  their 
emanations  constantly,  silently,  deadly,  into  the  interior 
of  the  houses  themselves." 

Upon  the  quality  and  supply  of  the  water  which  was 
essential  for  the  life  of  the  people,  and  upon  which  their 
health,  and  cleanliness,  and  sanitation  absolutely  depended, 
the  information  supplied  by  the  Medical  Officers  of  Health 
as  to  their  respective  districts  brings  home,  far  more  than 
any  general  descriptions  do,  the  full  import  and  actualities 
of  the  great  evils  endured  by  the  people,  and  the  disastrous 
consequences  entailed  upon  them. 


OF  LONDON  105 

As  to  the  water  from  the  surface  and  tidal  wells,  which 
large  numbers  of  them  used  and  consumed,  the  opinion, 
though  expressed  in  various  terms,  was  unanimous. 

From  Shoreditch  (1860),  the  Medical  Officer  of  Health 
wrote:  "I  have  hardly  ever  exposed  a  sample  of  town 
spring  water  to  the  heat  of  a  summer  day  for  some  hours 
without  observing  it  to  become  putrid." 

In  St.  Giles'  (1858-9),  "the  water  of  the  wells  was 
not  deemed  good  enough  (on  analysis)  for  watering  the 
roads."  In  St.  Marjdebone  "44  public  wells  supplied  water 
which  was  for  the  most  part  offensive  to  taste  and  smell." 
In  Kensington  (1860)  "  all  the  well  waters  of  the  parish  were 
foul."  In  Eotherhithe  (1857),  "  The  water  from  the  tidal 
well  smelt  as  if  it  had  recently  been  dipped  from  a  sewer." 

The  Medical  Officer  of  Health  for  Lambeth  declared  (1856) 
that  "the  shallow  well  waters  of  London  combined  the 
worst  features — they  represent  the  drainage  of  a  great 
manure  bed." 

The  people  were  driven  to  the  use  of  the  water  from  these 
wells  owing  to  the  deficient  and  intermittent  supply  of 
water  by  the  various  Water  Companies — water  supplied 
for  less  than  an  hour  a  day  by  one  single  stand-pipe  in 
a  court  containing  hundreds  of  people — water  supplied 
only  every  second  and  third  day,  and  none  on  Sundays,  the 
day  of  all  others  on  which  it  was  most  wanted ;  and  the 
house-owners  had  provided  no  cisterns  or  reservoirs  of 
proper  capacity,  and  the  Vestries  had  not  compelled  the 
house-owners  to  do  so. 

In  some  parishes  hundreds  of  houses  had  no  supply  at 
all.  In  some  houses  which  had  a  supply  the  tenants  were 
deliberately  deprived  thereof  by  the  Water  Companies, 
because  the  house-owner  had  not  paid  the  -water-rate. 

The  defective  supply  had  the  disastrous  effect  of  putting  a 
constant  premium  upon  dirt — dirt  of  person,  of  room,  of 
houses,  and  their  surroundings.  And  such  drains  and 
sewers  as  there  were,  were  insufficiently  flushed. 

Time  after  time  the  consequential  evils  were  pointed  out, 
and  Water  Companies  and  house-owners  were  vigorously 
censured.     But  the  censure  had  little  practical  effect. 


106       THE   SANITARY  EVOLUTION 

The  great  inconveniences  and  evils,  however,  evoked 
the  expression  of  opinion  that  the  duty  of  supplying 
water  to  the  community  ought  to  be  in  the  hands  of  the 
community. 

Even  in  1844  it  had  been  pointed  out  that : — 

"  Water  is  as  indispensable  for  many  purposes  as  air  is 
for  life  itself,  and  its  supply  ought  not  to  be  allowed  to 
depend  on  the  cupidity  or  caprice  of  landlords  or  "Water 
Companies." 

And  the  Metropolitan  Sanitary  Association  had  enunciated 
the  principle : — 

"  That  inasmuch  as  water  is  a  prime  necessity  of  life, 
attainable  in  large  cities  by  combined  effort  only,  and  not 
to  be  denied  to  any  without  injury  to  all,  its  supply  should 
not  be  dependent  on  commercial  enterprise,  but  be  pro- 
vided at  the  expense  of  the  community  for  the  common 
benefit." 

And  the  Medical  Officer  of  Health  for  St.  George-in-the 
East  wrote  in  1856  : — 

"  The  water  supply  of  your  Parish  is  in  the  hands  of  a 
Joint  Stock  Company,  called  the  East  London  Water 
Company,  and  is  managed  by  persons  who  represent  solely 
the  interest  of  the  shareholders,  whose  only  anxiety  is  of 
course  the  dividends — the  consumers  are  not  represented  at 
all.  This  appears  to  me  to  be  a  strange  anomaly,  a  false 
position,  and  a  monstrous  inconsistency — as  great  as  if  the 
sewerage  of  London  were  committed  to  a  Joint  Stock 
Company.  But  so  it  is,  and  however  great  the  danger, 
the  Vestry  has  no  available  remedy  whatever  in  its 
hands." 

The  principle  had  been  conceded  by  Parliament  so  far  as 
England  was  concerned — the  large  cities  and  even  small 
towns  having  been  authorised  to  undertake  the  supply  of 
water ;  but  London,  the  capital,  was  denied  the  power  to 
do  so — the  duty  was  given  to  private  companies,  and  the 
population  of  London  was  left  to  undergo  untold  sufferings. 

The  quality  of  the  water  supplied  by  most  of  the  Water 
Companies  after  the  intakes  had  been  removed  to  above 
Teddington   Lock,   and   the   filtration   thereof    before   dis- 


OF   LONDON  107 

tribution  for  domestic  use  had  been  made  compulsory, 
was  considerably  improved. 

But  the  filthy  and  dangerous  character  of  the  recep- 
tacles provided  in  many  houses  for  it  undid  much  of  the 
good  which  would  have  come  from  the  improvement  in 
quality. 

The  description  given  by  one  of  the  Medical  Officers  of 
Health  was  in  the  main  true  : — 

"  There  is  disease  and  death  in  the  tanks,  wells,  and 
water-butts." 

Thus,  in  the  great  primary  necessities  of  the  public  health 
— efficient  sewerage  and  drainage,  decent  houses,  good 
ventilation,  pure  air,  a  pure  and  ample  water  supply — the 
general  conditions  were  almost  inconceivably  bad. 

These  evil  conditions,  however,  were  far  from  con- 
stituting the  whole  of  those  under  which  the  people  of 
London  suffered. 

Over  and  above  them  all  was  one  which  compelled  the 
attention  of  the  Medical  Officers  of  Health  the  moment  they 
had  entered  on  their  duties — "the  gigantic  evil,"  "the 
monster  evil  "  of  overcrowding.  Not  the  mere  crowding  of 
houses  together,  evil  though  that  was,  but  the  overcrowding 
of  people  in  those  houses,  and  still  worse,  the  overcrowding 
of  the  rooms  of  those  houses  by  human  beings.  In  every 
part  of  the  metropolis  there  was  overcrowding ;  worst  in 
the  centre,  and  the  parts  nearest  the  centre  of  London,  but 
existing  in  the  outer  districts  where  houses  still  were 
comparatively  few  and  population  small.  Centre,  East, 
North,  West,  South,  there  was  overcrowding,  differing  only 
in  extent  and  acuteness  of  form. 

"  Soon  after  I  was  appointed  as  Sanitary  Adviser  to  your 
Board,"  wrote  the  Medical  Officer  of  Health  for  Holborn 
(1856-7),  "  I  found,  dwelling  in  houses  which  were 
undrained,  waterless,  and  unventilated,  whole  hordes  of 
persons  who  struggled  so  little  in  self-defence  that  they 
seemed  to  be  indifferent  to  the  sanitary  evils  by  which  they 
were  surrounded. 

"It  is  too  true  that  among  these  classes  there  were 
swarms  of  men   and   women  who   had   yet   to  learn  that 


108       THE   SANITARY  EVOLUTION 

human  beings  should  dwell  differently  from  cattle,  swarms 
to  whom  personal  cleanliness  was  utterly  unknown,  swarms 
by  whom  delicacy  and  decency  in  their  social  relations  were 
quite  unconceived,  ..." 

He  mentions  some  instances  too  horrible  to  quote,  and 
says  :  "  Such  were  instances  that  came  within  my  own 
knowledge  of  the  manner  and  of  the  degree  in  which 
persons  may  relapse  into  habits  worse  than  those  of  savage 
life,  when  their  domestic  condition  is  neglected,  and  when 
they  are  suffered  by  overcrowding  to  habituate  themselves 
to  the  lowest  depths  of  physical  obscenity  and  degradation." 

In  St.  Luke  "  the  houses  swarmed  with  their  human 
tenants."  In  Bethnal  Green  "our  crowded  streets  and 
courts  are  becoming  more  crowded."  In  St.  Pancras  "in 
many  houses  the  overcrowding  is  very  great,  each  room 
being  occupied  by  a  family." 

In  Islington,  so  overcrowded  were  some  of  the  houses 
that  the  Medical  Officer  of  Health  had  met  with  as  little  as 
220,  190,  170,  down  to  135  cubic  feet  of  air  available  for 
each  occupant  of  a  room. 

In  Eotherhithe  "  almost  all  the  houses  were  overcrowded 
with  inmates." 

In  Westminster,  the  Medical  Officer  of  Health  gave  (in 
1858)  fifty  examples  of  overcrowding  in  his  district.  In  one 
house,  in  a  room  13  feet  long  by  9  wide,  and  7  feet  high, 
there  were  5  adults  and  3  children  ;  and  in  a  lower  room  in 
the  same  house,  10  feet  long  by  9  wide,  and  8  high,  there 
were  4  adults  and  5  children. 

There  are  no  statistics  whatever  showing  even  approxi- 
mately the  number  of  cases  at  that  time  in  which  a  single 
room  was  occupied  by  a  family,  but  it  is  certain  that  vast 
numbers  of  families  had  to  be  content  with  that  limited 
accommodation.  Nor  was  that  even  the  worst — for,  in 
very  many  cases,  more  families  than  one  lived  in  a  single 
room,  or  the  single  family  took  in  one  or  more  lodgers. 

Life  under  such  circumstances  must  have  been,  and 
was,  awful.  The  Medical  Officer  of  Health  for  St.  Giles' 
wrote : — 

"  The  houses  whose  rooms  are  occupied  by  single  families 


OF   LONDON  109 

were  last  year  in  a  condition  of  squalor  and  overcrowding 
which  it  is  difficult  to  conceive  surpassed.  .  .  . 

"In  Lincoln  and  Orange  Courts,  the  most  glaring  violation 
of  the  laws  of  health  and  of  the  requirements  of  civilised 
life  was  found.  For  instance,  there  are  several  small  rooms 
in  the  backyards  of  Church  Lane.  .  .  .  Each  of  the  rooms 
measures  about  10  feet  by  8,  and  between  6  and  7  feet  high. 
Each  of  them  serves  a  family  for  sleeping,  cooking,  and  all 
domestic  needs. 

"...  The  air  of  these  rooms  was  unbearable  to  a  visitor, 
and  to  open  the  window  was  only  to  exchange  one  foul 
emanation  for  another." 

And  the  Medical  Officer  of  Health  for  Clerkenwell  wrote 
(1856)  :— 

**Li  thousands  of  instances  in  this  district,  living, 
cooking,  sleeping,  and  dying  ...  all  go  on  in  one 
room.  ... 

"If  a  poor  man  gets  married  he  is  pretty  sure  to  have 
a  large  family  of  children,  and  at  the  present  rate  of 
mortality  several  will  die  of  zymotic  disease. 

"  Hence,  when  a  death  occurs,  the  living  and  the  dead 
must  be  together  in  the  same  room ;  the  living  must  eat, 
drink,  and  sleep  beside  a  decomposing  corpse,  and  this  in 
usually  a  small,  ill-ventilated  room,  overheated  by  a  fire 
required  for  cooking,  and  already  filled  with  the  foul 
emanations  from  the  bodies  of  the  living  and  their  impure 
clothes. 

"  This  is  an  everyday  occurrence  in  Clerkenwell,  and 
constitutes  a  formidable  evil." 

So  great  was  the  pressure  for  accommodation  of  some 
sort  or  kind,  that  even  the  cellars  and  kitchens  in  the 
basements  of  the  houses  were  occupied  as  dwelling-places 
and  overcrowded. 

In  St.  James',  "the  worst  feature  of  the  overcrowding 
was  the  very  common  practice  of  residence  in  cellars  or 
kitchens.  In  the  majority  of  cases  the  places  are  quite 
unfit  for  human  residence. 

"...  A  cellar  in  St.  Giles',"  wrote  the  Medical  Officer 
of  Health  for  that  district  in  1858,  "has  been  the  by- word 


110       THE   SANITARY  EVOLUTION 

for  centuries  to  express  a  wretched  habitation  unworthy  of 
humanity. 

"Dating  from  the  time  of  Charles  I.,  the  underground 
dweUings  of  our  district  attained  the  acme  of  their 
miserable  notoriety  from  the  pen  and  pencil  of  Fielding 
and  Hogarth. 

"...  The  Building  Act  of  1844  contained  stringent 
clauses  against  the  use  of  such  rooms  unless  they  possessed 
requisites  of  area  and  ventilation,  such  as  were  out  of  the 
question  in  the  cellars  of  St.  Giles'. 

"  The  Metropolis  Management  Act  (1855)  repeated  the 
prohibition  of  1844,  and  in  defence  of  the  public  health  the 
Board  have  lately  put  this  statute  in  force.  This  has  been 
done  without  compromise.  As  separate  habitations  for 
occupation  by  human  beings  at  night  '  a  cellar  in  St.  Giles' ' 
is  no  longer  to  exist." 

This  was  written  in  1858,  but  in  the  following  year  he 
wrote : — 

"  The  profit  derived  from  letting  the  basement  of  these 
houses  as  dwelling-rooms  was  too  strong  a  temptation  for 
their  owners,  and  many  of  the  kitchens  were  let  again  as 
soon  as  the  Inspector  had  reported  them  emptied." 

In  the  Strand  (1856)  underground  rooms  and  kitchens 
were  inhabited  "  notwithstanding  that  District  Surveyors 
are  numerous,  and  that  the  Metropolitan  Building  Act  is 
in  operation." 

In  Westminster,  "  an  examination  of  various  portions  of 
the  parishes  shows  that  large  numbers  of  the  poor  occupy 
premises  whereby  they  are  not  only  deprived  of  the  required 
quantity  of  air,  but  being  situated  below  the  level  of  the 
street,  the  ventilation  is  insufficient,  the  rooms  generally 
damp,  and  when  closed  for  the  night  the  atmosphere  is 
perfectly  insufferable — mostly  kitchens  and  cellars,  evi- 
dently never  intended  to  be  used  as  sleeping  rooms  " 
(1858-9). 

The  causes  of  the  dreadful  overcrowding  which  existed  so 
extensively  were  many  and  deep-seated — springing  from  the 
very  roots  of  the  social  and  economic  system.  And  they 
were  of  great  force  and  widespread  in  effect. 


OF   LONDON  111 

The  cause  to  which  the  various  authorities  and  Medical 
Officers  of  Health  directly  attributed  it  was  the  one 
immediately  before  their  eyes — namely,  the  pulling  down 
of  houses  which  hitherto  had  afforded  shelter,  of  a  sort,  to 
the  people. 

As  the  Medical  Officer  of  Health  for  St.  Olave,  Southwark, 
said  (1860-1)  :— 

"  To  effect  street  improvements — to  build  warehouses,  or 
for  some  other  purpose — the  habitations  of  the  working 
classes  are  broken  up  without  any  provision  being  made  for 
them  elsewhere.  They  are  therefore  driven  by  necessity  to 
crowd  into  other  houses  in  the  same  neighbourhood  perhaps 
already  overcrowded." 

An  actual  illustration  was  the  case  reported  by; the  Medical 
Officer  of  Health  for  Limehouse  : — 

"  The  London  Dock  Company  have,  for  the  purpose  of 
enlarging  and  improving  their  docks,  pulled  down  not  less 
than  400  houses  in  the  parish  of  Shadwell,  the  homes  of  not 
fewer  than  3,000  persons  of  the  poorer  classes. 

"...  The  neighbouring  parishes  are  now  suffering  from 
an  augmentation  of  their  already  overcrowded  population." 

The  District  Board  of  St.  Saviour,  Southwark,  stated  that 
the  evil  of  overcrowding  "  can  scarcely  be  exaggerated, 
whether  it  be  regarded  in  a  physical,  mental,  or  moral 
aspect." 

The  principal  of  the  causes  are  : — 

"  (1)  The  arbitrary  power  exercised  by  railway  companies 
in  ejecting  the  labouring  classes  from  their  homes  without 
any  obligation  to  provide  for  their  domestic  convenience. 

"  (2)  The  existing  law  of  (poor  law)  removal,  any  break  in 
the  three  years'  residence  in  the  parish  rendering  them 
liable  to  removal  to  other  distant  parishes." 

The  latter  had,  however,  most  probably,  but  very  small 
effect. 

A  great  cause  was  that  described  by  the  Medical  Officer  of 
Health  for  Shoreditch : — 

"  There  is  a  constant  and  rapid  flow  of  population  into 
Shoreditch.  It  is  in  this  circumstance  that  I  see  one  of  the 
most  alarming  dangers  to  the  health  of  the  district. 


112       THE   SANITARY  EVOLUTION 

'*  The  area  does  not  enlarge,  and  yet  year  after  year  dense 
crowds  of  human  beings  are  packed  and  squeezed  into  that 
limited  area.  The  growth  of  the  population  has  far 
outstripped  the  growth  of  the  house  accommodation. 

"  The  immense  majority  of  the  immigrants  are  precisely 
of  that  class  which  most  largely  increases  the  dangers  of 
disease  by  thickening  the  population.  You  are  largely 
burdened  with  the  pauperism  of  other  and  wealthier  dis- 
tricts. The  burden  is  doubly  grievous ;  for  it  taxes  your 
property,  your  labour,  and  gives  strength  to  the  elements  of 
disease  amongst  you. 

"It  is  probable  that  there  is  no  spot  in  London  more 
crowded  with  life  than  many  places  in  Holywell  or  St. 
Leonard's. 

"Typhus — a  disease  more  terrible  than  cholera — has  made 
itself  at  home  in  the  parish." 

And  the  Medical  Of&cer  of  Health  for  Fulham  wrote 
(1857)  :— 

"...  The  daily  necessities  of  the  labourer's  family  draw 
so  heavily  on  his  earnings  as  to  leave  only  a  very  small  sum 
for  the  payment  of  rent,  and  hence  the  most  limited  house 
accommodation  is  sought  for  and  endured.  ..." 

The  most  powerful  cause  of  all,  however,  was,  un- 
doubtedly, the  overpowering  instinct  of  self-preservation, 
or,  in  other  words,  the  need  of  working,  no  matter  under 
what  conditions,  for  the  only  means  of  obtaining  food  for 
themselves  and  their  families.  That,  as  a  rule,  necessitated 
their  being  near  the  work  to  be  done — and  rather  than  lose 
that  work  any  conceivable  hardship  or  abomination  would 
be  put  up  with. 

Another  of  the  great  causes  of  overcrowding  was  high 
rent. 

"It  must  not  be  imagined,"  wrote  the  Medical  0£&cer  of 
Health  for  the  Strand  (1858),  "that  this  system  of  over- 
crowding is  altogether  a  direct  consequence  of  a  state  of 
poverty.  It  certainly  does  not  appear  to  be  so,  for  among 
the  Metropolitan  Districts  the  Strand  ranks  seventh  in 
order  of  wealth. 

"  The  overcrowding  seems  to  be  partly  a  result  of  the 


OF  LONDON  113 

high  rental  which  the  houses  and  rooms  of  many  parts  of  the 
district — so  peculiarly  well  situate  for  business  purposes — 
command,  and  partly  of  the  *  middleman  '  system,  in  which 
so  many  of  the  houses  in  the  occupation  of  the  poorer 
residents  are  let. 

"The  'middleman'  system,  which  obtains  so  largely  in 
this  metropolis,  in  the  letting  of  houses  of  the  kind  referred 
to,  is  ruinous  in  its  action  upon  the  working  classes.  The 
rent  paid  for  a  single  room  often  exceeds  a  sixth  or  fifth  of 
the  total  income  of  the  family.  ..." 

In  a  case  in  Bow  Street  Police  Court  it  was  given  in 
evidence  that  21,  Church  Lane,  St.  Giles',  was  rented  of 
the  owner  for  £25  a  year — that  the  rents  recovered  from  the 
sub-tenants  were  £58  10s. — and  the  rents  received  by  these 
sub-tenants  from  lodgers  £120  per  annum.* 

Overcrowding  was  not  confined  to  the  sleeping  places  of 
the  people,  for  the  same  causes  which  cramped  the  available 
space  for  people  at  night,  cramped  also  the  space  for  very 
many  of  them  during  the  day  when  they  were  away  from 
their  so-called  homes. 

Of  the  overcrowding  in  factories  and  workshops,  where  so 
many  of  the  working  classes  spent  their  days,  and  of  the  in- 
sanitary conditions  in  which  they  there  worked,  no  mention 
is  made  in  these  earlier  reports  of  the  Medical  Officers  of 
Health,  not  because  there  were  not  any,  but  because  the 
inspection  or  regulation  of  factories  and  workshops  did  not 
come  within  the  sphere  of  their  duties.  Evidence  in  plenty 
there  is  on  this  branch  of  the  subject  in  later  years  from 
those  who  could  speak  with  authority  in  the  matter,  and 
it  will  be  referred  to  hereafter,  and  that  the  state  of 
things  then  described  is  equally  applicable  to  this  period 
is  an  inference  so  legitimate  as  to  be  tantamount  to  a 
certainty.  That  the  bad  conditions  under  which  the 
workers  worked  were  a  great  contributing  factor  in  the 
insanitary  condition  of  the  people  is  a  fact  as  to  which 
there  can  be  no  question. 

Mention  is  made,  however,  of  the  overcrowding  which 
existed   in    another    large    section    of    the   community — 
*  P.P.  1852-3,  vol.  Ixxviii.  p.  327. 
9 


114       THE   SANITARY  EVOLUTION 

namely,  the  overcrowding  of  children  in  some  of  the  schools. 
The  Medical  Officer  of  Health  for  Whitechapel  reported 
that  there  was  much  overcrowding,  and  in  his  report  for 
1857  gave  some  instances  of  it  in  his  district : — 

18,  Charlotte  Street. — In  a  room  8  feet  high,  7  wide, 
10  long :  14  children  and  1  mistress  =  37  cubic  feet 
each. 

17,  Charlotte  Street. — Matters  still  worse  ;  the  room  was 
underground ;  10  feet  wide,  10  long ;  about  7  feet  high ; 
35  children  and  1  mistress  =  20  cubic  feet  each. 

2,  Gorelston  Street. — 672  cubic  feet ;  31  children  and 
1  mistress  =  20  cubic  feet  each. 

In  such  cases  the  atmosphere  must  have  been  a  rapid 
poison  to  those  breathing  it. 

There  was  another  powerful  contributory  cause  to  the 
general  insanitation  of  London,  namely,  the  defilement 
of  the  atmosphere  which  people  had  to  breathe.  As 
one  of  the  Medical  Officers  of  Health  said  some  years 
later : — 

"  We  should  remember  that  the  air  we  breathe  is  as 
much  our  food  as  the  solids  we  eat  and  the  liquids  we 
drink,  and  as  much  care  should  be  taken  that  it  is  free 
from  adulteration." 

London  was  already  the  greatest  manufacturing  city  in 
the  world,  and  the  great  volumes  of  smoke  proceeding  from 
the  numerous  factories  undoubtedly  deteriorated  the  quahty 
of  the  air.  But  it  was  the  noxious  vapours  proceeding  from 
the  various  processes  of  manufacture  classified  as  "  noxious 
trades  "  which  rendered  the  atmosphere  in  many  parts  of 
London  dangerous  to  health. 

Many  were  the  descriptions  given  of  the  almost  intolerable 
evils.  Thus  the  Medical  Officer  of  Health  for  Eotherhithe 
reported  in  1857  : — 

"  In  the  mile  length  of  Eotherhithe  Street  there  are  no 
less  than  nine  factories  for  the  fabrication  of  patent  manure, 
that  is  to  say,  nine  sources  of  foetid  gases.  The  process 
gives  out  a  stench  which  has  occasioned  headache,  nausea, 
vomiting,  cough,  &c.  Many  complaints  have  been  made  by 
the  inhabitants." 


OF   LONDON  115 

From  St.  Mary,  Newington,  "the  terrible  effluvium  of 
bone-boiling  is  freely  transmitted  over  the  district." 

Some  manufacture  in  a  yard  in  Clerkenwell  (1856-7), 
which  had  existed  until  lately,  v^^as  "  one  of  the  most 
abominable,  exceeding  anything  that  the  imagination  could 
picture." 

And  in  every  parish  or  district  of  London  there  were 
slaughter-houses. 

"  There  are  too  many  slaughter-houses  in  crowded  dis- 
tricts," wrote  the  Medical  Officer  of  Health  for  St.  Pancras 
(1856-7).  "It  is  impossible  that  slaughtering  of  animals 
can  be  carried  on  amongst  a  dense  population  without 
proving  more  or  less  injurious  to  the  public  health. 

"  This  it  does  in  several  ways — by  occasioning  the  escape 
of  effluvia  from  decomposing  animal  refuse  into  the  air  and 
along  the  drains,  and  by  the  numerous  trades  to  which  it 
gives  rise  in  the  neighbourhood  which  are  offensive  and 
noxious,  such  as  gut-spinning,  tallow-melting,  bladder- 
blowing,  and  paunch-cleansing." 

Even  in  the  Strand  District  there  were  (1856) — 

"  Nuisances  arising  from  various  branches  of  industry,  the 
slaughtering  of  sheep  and  calves  in  the  back-yards,  and  even 
in  the  cellars  and  kitchens,  and  the  keeping  of  cows  in  the 
basements  under  private  dwelling-houses,  conditions  which 
continue  to  exist  in  the  most  crowded  parts  of  this  district, 
and  should  on  no  account  be  permitted  in  such  a  district :  " 
whilst  in  Westminster  "  pig-keeping  existed  to  a  very 
considerable  extent." 

In  some  of  the  outer  parishes  the  "  foetid  emanations  " 
caused  in  the  process  of  brickmaking  added  to  the  general 
impurity  of  the  air. 

There  were  many  other  local  causes  of  impurity  of  the 
atmosphere,  some  even  caused  by  the  Sanitary  Authorities 
themselves.  Thus  the  more  thorough  scavenging  and 
removal  of  the  filth  of  streets  and  houses,  vitally  necessary 
as  that  was,  resulted  in  the  accumulation  of  great  heaps  of 
filth  in  crowded  centres. 

Thus  the  Medical  Officer  of  Health  for  Fulham  reported 
that':— 


116       THE   SANITARY  EVOLUTION 

"The  collection  of  dust  heaps,  and  dust  contractors' 
depots,  constitute  a  most  injurious  and  offensive  nuisance — 
enormous  quantities  of  animal  and  vegetable  matter  are 
heaped  together,  from  which  the  most  noxious  effluvia 
constantly  arise." 

And  the  Medical  Officer  of  Health  for  Kotherhithe  pointed 
out  (1858)  that  :— 

"It  is  little  use  causing  our  ov7n  dust  to  be  carted  away 
if  Eotherhithe  is  to  become  the  receptacle  of  all  the  ashes 
and  offal  of  a  large  neighbouring  parish  (Bermondsey) .  On 
a  piece  of  land  near  the  Viaduct  there  stands  an  immense 
heap  of  house  refuse,  covering  an  acre  of  ground  at  least, 
and  forming  quite  an  artificial  hillock,  the  level  of  the 
surface  having  been  raised  12-14  feet.  The  bulk  of  the  heap 
is  composed  of  ashes  with  a  due  admixture  of  putrefying 
vegetable  matter  and  fish." 

A  little  later  he  reports  it  as  1|  acres  in  extent,  averaging 
15  feet  high,  in  one  place  as  high  as  20  feet. 

How  to  deal  with  these  noxious  or  offensive  trades  was 
felt  by  some  of  the  Medical  Officers  of  Health  to  be  a  great 
difficulty. 

"  We  have  the  health  of  the  community  on  the  one  hand," 
wrote  the  Medical  Officer  of  Health  for  Lambeth ;  "  the  great 
manufacturing  interests  on  the  other.  .  .  .  We  have  all  a 
common  right  to  an  unpolluted  atmosphere,  and  it  is  our 
bounden  duty  to  withstand  any  encroachments  on  that 
right.  The  personal  aggrandisement  of  the  manufacturer 
must  not  be  achieved  by  the  spoliation  of  the  property,  the 
comforts,  and  the  lives  of  his  poorer  neighbours.  .  .  . 

"  But  the  manufacturing  interest  is  not  a  thing  to  be 
trifled  v^ith.  Destroy  the  manufactures  of  Lambeth,  and 
you  starve  its  population.  There  are  nuisances  of  more 
benefit  than  of  injury  to  the  community,"  and  he  rather 
deprecated  **  a  crusade  against  those  interests,  the  un- 
trammelled prosecution  of  which  has  raised  this  country 
to  its  present  proud  pre-eminence." 

Some  of  the  Medical  Officers  of  Health  expressed  decided 
views  on  the  subject  (1857)  : — 

"  Those  who  follow  unwholesome  trades  led  on  by  the 


OF  LONDON  117 

thirst  of  gain,"  reported  one  Medical  Officer  of  Health, 
**  have  no  right  to  poison  a  neighbourhood  and  swell  its 
mortality." 

The  Medical  Officer  of  Health  for  the  Strand  wrote 
(1856)  :— 

"...  The  protection  of  the  public  health  which  has 
been  committed  to  your  charge  is,  beyond  doubt,  of  in- 
finitely more  importance  than,  and  should  far  outweigh  the 
interests  of,  private  individuals  how  numerous  soever  they 
should  be." 

The  Nuisances  Eemoval  Act,  1855,  had  given  the  local 
authority  power  on  the  certificate  of  the  Medical  Officer  of 
Health  to  take  proceedings  against  an  offender,  and  had 
provided  the  means  for  inflicting  a  penalty.  And  in  some 
instances  it  was  used,  for  the  Medical  Officer  of  Health  for 
Hackney  reported : — 

*'  Several  proprietors  of  noxious  trades  having  omitted  to 
adopt  the  best  practicable  means  for  preventing  injury  to 
health,  in  some  cases  legal  proceedings  were  taken  against 
them." 

The  Medical  Officer  of  Health  for  Whitechapel  declared 
there  was  no  desire  on  his  part  to  use  the  powers  of  the 
Act  to  the  oppression  of  any  individual  or  to  insist  upon 
the  adoption  of  such  arbitrary  and  stringent  measures  as 
shall  drive  wealthy  manufacturers  from  the  district.  "  All 
that  is  necessary  to  be  insisted  upon  is  that  the  business  be 
so  conducted  that  the  health  and  comfort  of  the  inhabitants 
shall  not  be  injured." 

But  whether  it  was  from  the  unwillingness  of  the  local 
authorities  to  prosecute,  or  the  difficulties  of  enforcing  the 
law,  the  nuisances  continued  to  the  great  detriment  of  the 
health  of  the  people. 

And  over  and  above  this  combination  of  nuisances,  there 
was  the  abominable  smell  from  the  river.  That  still  was  an 
evil. 

"  Eotherhithe,"  wrote  the  Medical  Officer  of  Health,  in 
July,  1858,  *'  in  common  with  all  other  metropolitan  river- 
side parishes,  has  suffered  considerable  inconvenience  during 
the  last  month  from  the  stenches  arising  from  the  filthy 


118       THE   SANITARY  EVOLUTION 

state  of  the  Thames  water.  Perhaps  in  the  annals  of 
mankind  such  a  thing  was  never  before  known,  as  that  the 
whole  stream  of  a  large  river  for  a  distance  of  seven  or  eight 
miles  should  be  in  a  state  of  putrid  fermentation.  The 
cause  is  the  hot  weather  acting  upon  the  ninety  millions  of 
gallons  of  sewage  which  discharge  themselves  daily  into  the 
Thames.  And  by  sewage  must  be  understood  not  merely 
house  and  land  drainage,  but  also  drainage  from  bone- 
boilers,  soap-boilers,  chemical  works,  breweries,  and  gas 
factories — the  last  the  most  filthy  of  all.  ...  It  is  quite 
impossible  to  calculate  the  consequences  of  such  a  moving 
mass  of  decomposition  as  the  river  at  present  offers  to  our 
senses."  , . 

As  one  sums  up  all  these  disastrous  influences,  or  rather, 
these  evil  powers,  unceasing  in  their  work,  by  night  and  by 
day — in  the  overcrowded  dwelling  and  the  street — with  their 
victims  unable  to  escape,  one  realises  somewhat  the  con- 
ditions under  which  great  masses  of  the  people  of  London 
were  living. 

The  result  was  a  fearful  mortality — an  awful  waste  of 
human  life. 

"  Death,"  wrote  one  of  the  Medical  Officers  of  Health, 
"  finds  easy  victims  in  filthy  habits,  overcrowded  rooms, 
impure  air,  and  insufficient  and  ineffective  water  supply." 

The  consequences  were  inevitable. 

"  Wherever  there  are  crowded  apartments,  imperfect  or 
no  drainage,  offensive  cesspools,  dung-heaps  resting  against 
houses  or  close  to  inhabited  rooms — wherever  ventilation  is 
impeded  by  the  narrowness  of  courts  and  alleys,  and  where- 
ever  the  inhabitants  living  under  these  unfavourable  circum- 
stances lose  their  self-respect,  pay  no  regard  to  personal 
cleanliness,  and  consider  a  state  of  filth  and  offensiveness 
as  their  natural  lot — there  we  find  zymotic  diseases  in  full 
force  and  frequency.  Those  attacked  do  not  simply  recover 
or  die.  I  shall  not  be  exaggerating  when  I  say  that  all  re- 
covering from  these  complaints  are  permanently  injured."  * 

It  is  impossible  to  apportion  the  respective  shares  which 
these  various  causes  of  insanitation  had  in  bringing  about 
*  ClerkenweU,  1856. 


OF  LONDON  119 

these  dire  results,  but  overcrowding  was  undoubtedly  one  of 
the  principal.  As  to  its  disastrous  effects  the  Medical 
Officers  of  Health  were  of  one  opinion.  There  was  no 
single  exception  to  the  strong-voiced  insistence  upon  this 
fact. 

"  The  main  cause,"  wrote  the  Medical  Officer  of  Health 
for  the  Strand  (1856),  "  to  which  we  must  attribute  the 
high  mortality  is  the  close  packing  and  overcrowding  which 
exists  throughout  the  district.  .  .  .  Overcrowding  and 
disease  mutually  act  and  react  upon  each  other. 

"  There  is  one  circumstance  of  general  prevalence 
throughout  the  district  which,  so  to  speak,  almost  paralyses 
these  efforts  of  sanitary  improvement — overcrowding — the 
overcrowding  of  parts  of  it  with  courts  and  alleys,  the 
overcrowding  of  these  courts  and  alleys  with  houses,  the 
overcrowding  of  these  houses  with  human  beings"  (1859). 

"  The  overcrowding  of  dwellings,"  wrote  another,*  "  is  one 
of  the  most  frequent  sources  of  sickness  and  decay  at  all 
ages." 

"Perhaps,"  wrote  a  third,t  "  there  is  no  single  influence 
to  which  a  human  being  is  exposed  more  prejudicial  to  his 
health  than  overcrowding  in  rooms  the  air  of  which  cannot 
be  perpetually  and  rapidly  changed." 

"No  axiom,"  wrote  another,!  "can  be  more  positive 
than  the  connection  of  epidemic  diseases  with  defects  of 
drainage  and  ventilation  .  .  .  the  overcrowded  localities 
being  especially  scourged  by  disease." 

The  consequences  were  not  confined  to  epidemic  disease ; 
other  fatal  diseases  were  begotten  by  it. 

"All  medical  writers,"  wrote  the  Medical  Officer  of 
Health  for  St.  James'  (1858),  "are  agreed  that  impure  air 
from  want  of  ventilation  is  the  most  potent  of  all  causes 
of  consumption." 

Not  merely  directly  did  overcrowding  bring  about  fatal 
results.  Indirectly  it  also  led  thither.  It  was  recognised 
as  a  cause  of  intemperance  and  of  the  evils,  moral  as  well  as 
physical,  which  ensued  from  intemperance. 

' '  Men  whose  nervous  systems  became  depressed,  and  the 

*  Fulham,  1857.  f  Whitechapel,  1857.  I  St.  Giles,  1859. 


120       THE   SANITARY  EVOLUTION 

tone  of  their  system  generally  lowered,  became  the  subjects 
of  a  continued  craving  for  stimulants."  * 

Dr.  Simon,  Medical  Officer  of  the  General  Board  of 
Health,  wrote : — 

"In  an  atmosphere  which  forbids  the  breath  to  be  drawn 
freely,  which  maintains  habitual  ill-health  and  depresses  all 
the  natural  spring  and  buoyancy  of  life,  who  can  wonder 
that  frequent  recourse  is  had  to  stimulants  ?  " 

The  evils  were  disastrous  enough  for  the  adult  population, 
but  they  fell  with  more  dire  effect  upon  infants  and  young 
children. 

"  Conditions  more  or  less  injurious  to  health  gradually 
impair  the  matured  energies  and  slowly  undermine  the  fully 
developed  constitution  of  the  adult ;  but  the  self-same  con- 
ditions, exerting  their  baneful  influence  on  the  infant  or 
young  child,  nip  the  tender  plant  in  the  bud  and  speedily 
destroy  its  young  life."  + 

Throughout  the  whole  of  the  metropolis  the  infantile 
mortality — that  is,  of  children  under  five  years  of  age — was 
very  great :  Almost  without  exception  it  was  close  upon,  or 
over,  50  per  cent,  of  all  the  deaths  in  the  various  parishes 
or  districts. 

In  Clerkenwell  the  infantile  mortality,  which  was  "  nearly 
one-half  of  all  the  deaths,"  was  characterised  as  "enormous" ; 
but  in  Shoreditch  it  was  actually  one-half,  being  50  per  cent. 
(1858) ;  in  BethnalGreenit  was  over  one-half ,  being  52percent. 
(1858) ;  in  St.  George-in-the-East  it  was  53J  per  cent. — or, 
to  put  it  otherwise,  of  1,351  deaths  in  the  year,  720  were  of 
children  under  five.  In  Poplar  it  was  more  th9,n  half.  In 
Islington,  in  1857,  nearly  half.  In  St.  Saviour,  Southwark, 
50  per  cent,  in  1860-1,  "  a  waste  of  life  which  appears  almost 
incredible." 

In  Limehouse  (in  1857)  of  1,403  deaths  690  were  under 
five. 

The  Medical  Officer  of  Health  wrote : — 

"It  is  when  such  wretched  offspring,  ill-nourished,  ill- 
clothed,  and  in  every  way  neglected,  become  exposed  to  the 
depressing  influences  of  an  impure  atmosphere  that  they 
-  St.  George  the  Martyr,  1859-60.  i   Strand,  1859-60. 


OF   LONDON  121 

sicken,  and  such  children  when  they  sicken  they  die.  .  .  . 
When  the  habitation  of  such  children  is  an  overcrowded, 
dilapidated  tenement  in  some  close,  ill-ventilated  court  or 
alley,  furnished  with  an  undrained  closet,  surrounded  by 
untrapped  drains,  and  festering  heaps  of  filth,  we  find  our- 
selves astonished,  not  that  so  many  die,  but  that  so  many 
survive." 

In  some  special  places  the  mortality  was  still  higher. 
Thus  the  Medical  Officer  of  Health  for  Kensington  reports 
in  1866  :— 

"In  some  places  the  mortality  among  infants  under  five 
years  of  age  was  at  the  enormous  rate  of  61 '3  of  the  total 
deaths. 

"  One  of  the  most  deplorable  spots,  not  only  in  Kensington, 
but  in  the  whole  metropolis,  is  the  Potteries  at  Nottingdale. 
It  occupies  about  8  or  9  acres,  and  contains  about  1,000 
inhabitants  .  .  .  the  general  death-rate  varies  from  40-60 
per  1,000  per  annum.  Of  these  deaths,  the  very  large 
proportion  of  8l7*5  per  cent,  are  under  five  years  of  age." 

The  Medical  Officer  of  Health  for  Whitechapel  (in  1858), 
after  reporting  that  the  total  mortality  under  five  years  in 
the  Whitechapel  district  is  about  66  per  cent.,  wrote  : — 

"How  to  overcome  this  frightful  and  apparently  increas- 
ing amount  of  mortality  of  the  young  is  a  problem  well 
worthy  the  attentive  consideration  of  every  citizen.  The 
time  may  be  far  distant  before  this  problem  is  solved; 
nevertheless  it  is  my  duty  to  chronicle  facts,  and  although 
I  may  not  be  able  to  suggest  a  remedy  to  meet  this  evil, 
still  the  knowledge  that  so  large  an  amount  of  infant  mor- 
tality does  exist  in  our  district — I  may  say,  at  our  very  doors 
— will  perhaps  rouse  the  attention  of  the  philanthropist,  the 
man  of  science,  and  the  man  of  leisure,  to  investigate  its 
cause,  and  endeavour  to  mitigate  it." 

Once  more  it  must  be  called  to  mind  that  this  mortality 
was  not  the  whole  of  the  evil,  for  it  was  indicative  of 
widespread  infantile  sickness  and  disease  among  those  who 
escaped  the  death  penalty — sickness  and  disease  impairing 
the  health  and  strength  of  thousands  upon  thousands  of  the 
juvenile  population. 


122       THE   SANITARY  EVOLUTION 

The  facts  set  forth  by  many  of  the  Medical  Officers  of 
Health  must  have  enlightened  many  of  the  new  local 
authorities  as  to  the  nature  and  extent  of  the  work  which 
it  had  now  become  their  duty  to  perform,  and  the  grave 
problems  for  which  they  were  expected  to  find  the  best 
solution. 

The  earlier  annual  reports  of  many  of  the  Vestries  and 
District  Boards  were  poverty-stricken  in  the  extreme,  and 
were  mostly  confined  to  bald  and  uninforming  tables  of 
receipts  and  expenditure,  which  practically  threw  but  little 
light  upon  the  condition  of  their  parishes. 

The  Vestry  of  St.  Mary,  Newington,  evidently  anxious  to 
prevent  disappointment  as  to  immediate  results  from  its 
action,  stated  that : — 

"  In  consequence  of  the  previous  want  of  adequate  sanitary 
powers  in  the  local  authorities  of  this  and  other  suburban 
parishes,  so  great  an  extent  of  sanitary  improvement  was 
required  when  the  Vestry  came  into  operation,  that  it  was 
impossible  the  whole  could  be  dealt  with  at  once,  at  t."e 
same  time  acting  with  consideration  for  those  who  have  to 
bear  the  effects  of  many  years'  neglect  of  those  sanitary 
duties  which  are  now  found  to  be  so  essential." 

Lambeth  Vestry  expressed  its  desire  to  discover : — 

"  In  what  manner  a  prompt  and  beneficial  execution  of 
the  provisions  of  the  Act  can  be  secured  without  creating 
any  serious  increase  in  local  taxation." 

One  of  the  Vestries,  indeed,  gave  the  quaint  explanation 
that  one  of  the  things  which  somewhat  retarded  sanitary 
improvement  was  "  the  novelty  of  applying  compulsory 
powers  to  landlords." 

The  desirability  of  securing  parks  and  places  of  recreation 
for  the  people  was  one  of  the  matters  which  first  appealed 
to  some  of  the  Vestries  and  District  Boards,  and  memorials 
were  addressed  to  the  Metropolitan  Board  urging  the 
importance  of  their  putting  in  force  the  powers  conferred 
on  them  for  the  purchase  of  land  for  such  purposes. 

Others  directed  their  attention  to  the  promotion  in  a 
small  way  of  improvements  in  their  parishes  by  widening 
streets   and  roads,   and   preserving   open    spaces — towards 


OF   LONDON  123 

which,  in  some  cases,  they  received  a  contribution  from 
the  central  authority. 

A  good  deal  of  paving  v^as  done,  and  better  measures 
taken  for  scavenging  the  streets  and  courts,  and  for  the 
removal  of  refuse  and  dirt  of  all  sorts. 

To  local  sewerage,  as  distinct  from  main  sewerage,  they 
also  gave  attention,  and  in  1856  designs  for  45  miles  of 
new  sewers  were  sent  in  to  the  Metropolitan  Board  for 
approval,  and  d634,700  borrowed  for  the  purpose;  and  in 
the  following  year  for  46  miles  of  new  sewers,  and  loans 
for  £109,000. 

A  fair  amount  of  drainage  work  was  also  carried  out — 
thousands  of  cesspools  were  filled  in  and  drains  made.  Also 
a  certain  amount  of  inspection,  with  the  disclosure  of  an 
enormous  amount  of  insanitation. 

Thus,  in  the  Strand  District  in  1856 — where  813  houses 
were  inspected — in  774,  or  91  per  cent,  of  these,  works 
had  to  be  done  to  remedy  sanitary  defects.  In  the  follow- 
ing year  1,760  -houses  were  inspected,  and  in  1,102  sanitary 
defects  were  found.  In  Poplar,  of  1,299  houses  which  were 
visited,  795  required  sanitary  improvement.  In  Paddington 
2,201  houses  were  inspected ;  in  over  1,600  works  had  to 
be  executed  to  put  them  in  sanitary  order ;  figures  which 
showed  that,  roughly  speaking,  two  out  of  every  three 
houses  were  sanitarily  defective. 

"  The  last  year,"  wrote  the  Medical  Officer  of  Health  for 
Hackney  (1857) — where  1,518  houses  had  been  connected 
with  the  sewers — "has  been  a  year  of  drainage." 

Parliament  having  enacted  that  the  "  owner "  was 
responsible  for  the  state  of  his  property,  this  work  had 
to  be  done  at  the  expense  of  the  owners;  but  how  many 
decades  had  passed  in  which  "  owners  "  had  spent  nothing 
on  the  property,  and  had  been  receiving  large  rents ;  and 
how  many  cases  of  sickness  and  death  had  occurred  in 
their  houses,  the  result  of  the  insanitary  condition  in  which 
they  had  been  allowed  to  fall,  and  in  which  they  were 
allowed  to  continue. 

In  Holborn  such  works  cost  the  owners  about  £3,400 
in  1857,  and  in  Lambeth  about  £10,700. 


124       THE   SANITARY  EVOLUTION 

But  the  work  thus  chronicled  touched  Httle  more  than 
the  fringe  of  the  matter.  Most  of  the  local  authorities 
had,  out  of  a  spirit  of  economy,  or  for  some  other  reason, 
appointed  only  one  Inspector  of  Nuisances;  yet  in  nearly  every 
one  of  their  parishes  there  were  thousands  of  houses — in 
Greenwich  11,000,  in  St.  Marylebone  16,000,  in  Lambeth 
22,000 — and  years  would  have  had  to  elapse  before  the  solitary 
inspector  could  have  completed  even  one  round  of  inspec- 
tion and  got  the  houses  he  inspected  put  in  order ;  whilst 
the  others  would  inevitably  have  been  existing  in,  or  falling 
into,  a  state  of  insanitation.  For  years,  therefore,  the  most 
vile  disease-begetting  nuisances  might  not  merely  exist 
throughout  the  parish,  but  work  endless  evil  without  any 
interference,  as  indeed  they  did. 

Some  of  the  Vestries  put  forward  their  economy  as  a 
claim  for  praise.  Thus,  the  Wandsworth  Board  said  that 
"  a  due  and  careful  regard  to  economy  had  characterised 
all  their  proceedings,"  and  the  Vestry  of  St.  Mary  Newing- 
ton  said,  in  1860,  that  it  had  carried  out  its  operations  out 
of  current  income  and  had  incurred  no  debt. 

The  Medical  Officers  of  Health  held  their  offices  at  the 
pleasure  of  the  Vestries,  and,  therefore,  if  they  valued  their 
position,  had  to  be  cautious  in  their  criticisms  of  the 
management  of  the  affairs  of  the  parishes. 

But  their  reports  convey  that  the  work  which  ought  to 
have  been  done  was  not  being  done  as  rapidly  as  they 
wished. 

"I  wish  I  could  induce  the  Vestry  to  insist  more  upon 
having  the  poorer  dwellings  cleansed  and  lime-whited." 
And  again,  "  The  Vestry  has  the  power  to  restrict  the 
operation  of  underground  rooms,  yet  it  has  not  moved  in 
this  important  matter."  * 

The  Medical  Officer  of  Health  for  St.  Giles'  (1857) 
referred  to  the — 

"  Indisposition  of  the  Board  to  do  works  and  charge  the 
owners  " ;  and,  referring  to  a  special  case,  he  wrote,  "  It 
becomes  your  duty  to  do  something  to  prevent  the  produc- 
tion of  disease  among  the  neighbours." 
-  Clerkenwell,  1860-1. 


OF  LONDON  125 

The  Medical  Officer  of  Health  for  St.  Pancras  wrote 
in  1856-7  :— 

"  In  many  houses  the  overcrowding  is  very  great.  There 
is  a  clause  under  the  Nuisances  Kemoval  Act  by  which 
the  Vestry  is  called  on  to  take  proceedings  before  a 
magistrate  to  abate  overcrowding,  if  it  is  certified  to  be 
such  as  to  endanger  health.  No  prosecutions  have  been 
taken  under  this  clause." 

And  again  in  1859  : — 

"  Very  little  has  been  done  in  this  parish  to  abate  over- 
crowding— extreme  cases  have  been  proceeded  against.  No 
systematic  efforts  have  been  made  in  this  direction." 

And  the  Medical  Officer  of  Health  for  Hampstead  wrote 
(1856)  :— 

"  Nothing  short  of  constant  vigilance  and  inspection  can 
keep  the  dwellings  and  premises  of  the  people  in  a  tolerably 
healthy  state.  I  am  not  sure  that  your  Board  is  blame- 
less in  some  of  these  respects — an  amiable,  though  weak, 
reluctance  to  act  severely  to  any." 

And  in  1857  he  pleaded  for  the  appointment  of  an 
Inspector  of  Nuisances,  which,  however,  he  did  not  get. 

The  local  authorities  had  their  difficulties  in  dealing  with 
many  of  these  matters,  even  when  they  were  disposed  or 
anxious  to  do  so,  owing  to — 

"  The  imperfection  of  the  powers  conferred  on  them  by 
the  legislature,  and  to  the  great  and  stubborn  apathy  of 
a  poor  population." 

And  the  Medical  Officer  of  Health  for  St.  James'  (1858) 
attributed  blame  to  the  public  generally : — 

"  One  of  the  greatest  barriers  to  the  practical  efficiency  of 
sanitary  arrangements  is  the  ignorance  and  carelessness  of 
the  public.  It  is  frequently  seen  that  where  infectious 
illness  occurs,  little  or  no  attention  is  paid  to  its  infective 
character,  and  an  unscrupulous  intercourse  is  carried  on 
between  the  members  of  infected  families,  not  only 
amongst  themselves,  but  amongst  their  neighbours,  and 
thus  these  diseases  are  propagated  in  spite  of  every 
warning  and  precaution." 

"  I  regret,"   wrote    the  Medical   Officer   of  Health  for 


126       THE   SANITARY  EVOLUTION 

Whitechapel,  "  that  the  powers  of  your  Board  are  not 
at  present  suf&cient  to  compel  the  owners  of  small  house 
property  to  provide  an  adequate  supply  of  water  for  their 
tenants." 

The  Medical  Officer  of  Health  for  "Westminster  wrote  : — 

"  Few  of  the  objects  of  sanitary  improvement  can  be 
fairly  attained  without  intrenching  upon  private  interests 
to  an  extent  which  would  appear  harsh  and  oppressive. 
One  great  obstacle  consists  in  the  habits  of  a  great  portion 
of  the  poor — generally  deficient  in  cleanliness  or  order; 
they  consider  any  endeavour  to  improve  their  dwelling 
as  an  interference,  and  throw  every  obstacle  in  the  way. 
On  the  other  hand,  a  large  number  are  most  grateful  for 
what  has  been  effected." 

But  in  many  matters  the  local  authorities  would  not  take 
action.  In  only  four  parishes  or  districts  in  London  had 
public  baths  and  wash-houses  been  established  under  the 
Act  of  1846,  though  where  they  were  in  existence  "the 
benefits  were  immense  by  promoting  habits  of  cleanliness." 

In  Poplar  in  1858-9  nearly  40,000  men,  and  3,000 
women,  and  400  children  availed  themselves  of  the  baths. 

In  St.  Pan  eras  (1856-7)  the  laundry  department,  erected 
by  the  "  Society  for  Establishing  Public  Baths  and  Wash- 
houses,"  was  of  great  value  in  affording  the  poor  housewife  an 
opportunity  of  washing  and  drying  her  linen  away  from  her 
one  room,  in  which  the  family  had  to  live  night  and  day. 

"  I  have  frequently  seen  a  small  room  of  this  kind  with 
from  four  to  eight  or  even  ten  inmates  rendered  doubly 
unhealthy  by  these  laundry  operations,  which  produce  a 
damp  and  almost  malarious  atmosphere." 

The  Medical  Officer  of  Health  for  Lambeth  had  pleaded 
for  such  an  establishment  in  his  district,  but  "the  idea  of 
erecting  them  seems  quite  abandoned  by  the  Vestry." 

"I  know  nothing  more  objectionable  in  a  sanitary  point 
of  view  than  the  washing  of  foul  clothes  in  the  dwellings  of 
the  poor,  and  still  worse  the  drying  of  them  in  courts  and 
rooms  already  deficient  of  free  circulation  of  air  and  light." 

Nothing,  however,  was  done.  But  inaction  far  greater  in 
gravity  and  infinitely  more  reprehensible  was  that  relating 


OF   LONDON  127 

to  the  housing  of  the  people.  The  Medical  Officer  of  Health 
for  Whitechapel  drew  attention,  in  his  report  of  1857,  to 
their  power  in  this  respect : — 

" Docks, railways,  warehouses, &c.,  &c.,must  be  constructed 
for  the  increase  of  the  trade  of  this  great  metropolis,  but 
our  construction  of  them  ought  not  to  prevent  us  from  pro- 
viding better  habitations  for  the  working  classes  whose 
labours  effect  these  improvements  ;  more  especially  as  it  is 
in  the  power  of  parishes  by  virtue  of  an  Act  of  Parliament 
to  encourage  the  establishment  of  lodging-houses  for  the 
labouring  classes."  *  Not  one  single  Vestry  or  District 
Board  ever  attempted  to  deal  with  the  evils  of  bad  housing 
and  overcrowding  by  putting  into  operation  the  provisions 
of  this  Act. 

The  occasional  statement  in  the  report  of  a  Medical 
Officer  of  Health  as  to  what  was  actually  done  in  his 
parish,  by  showing  what  might  have  been  done  in  any 
other  one,  brings  into  strong  relief  the  incapacity  or 
deliberate  inaction  of  the  local  authorities  of  other  parishes. 
Thus,  in  some  parishes  the  Medical  Officers  of  Health 
endeavoured  to  effect  some  diminution  of  overcrowding — 
for  instance,  the  Medical  Officer  of  Health  for  Islington 
reported  that — 

"  In  several  instances  the  owners  of  dwelling-houses  had 
been  summoned  for  permitting  the  overcrowding  of  their 
houses;  and  the  magistrate  had  fined  the  offenders." 

And  the  Medical  Officer  of  Health  for  Holborn  in  the 
same  year  wrote  : — 

"Your  Board  has  already  done  much  to  ameliorate  the 
condition  of  this  class  of  society  (the  poor  and  overcrowded) 
by  compelling  the  owners  to  cleanse,  drain,  and  ventilate 
their  dwellings;  to  close  cellars,  to  provide  proper  water 
supply,  sanitary  accommodation,  and  in  many  cases  had 
abated  overcrowding." 

But  few  of  the  Vestries  followed,  or  attempted  to  follow, 
these  examples,  and  in  many  of  the  most  vital  matters  a 
deliberate  inactivity  was  the  prevailing  characteristic  of  the 
Vestries  and  District  Boards. 

*  14  and  15  Vic.  cap.  34. 


128       THE   SANITARY  EVOLUTION 

**  In  several  Vestries  resolutions  were  actually  moved  with 
the  view  of  averting  the  construction  of  sewers.  It  was 
thought  by  many  persons  of  influence  to  be  better  to  live 
in  the  midst  of  overflowing  cesspools  than  to  add  to  the 
defilement  of  the  Thames."  * 

The  Medical  Officers  of  Health  did  not  confine  themselves 
to  merely  reporting  what  was  annually  done  to  ameliorate 
the  existing  state  of  affairs. 

As  was  their  duty,  they  made  numerous  and  frequent 
suggestions  to  their  authorities  as  to  what  it  was  best  to 
do.  And  some  of  them,  going  further  than  this,  sometimes 
endeavoured  to  inspire  the  members  of  the  Vestries  and 
District  Boards  with  a  sense  of  the  gravity  of  their  work, 
and  with  lofty  views  of  their  duty.  Occasionally,  even, 
they  did  not  hesitate  to  censure  their  employers  for 
inaction  or  lethargy. 

The  Medical  Officer  of  Health  for  the  Strand  wrote 
(1856)  :— 

**  To  pave  streets,  and  to  water  roads,  to  drain  houses  or 
even  to  construct  sewers,  however  necessary  these  works 
may  be,  are  among  the  least  important  of  the  duties  which 
devolve  upon  you.  But  to  improve  the  social  condition  of 
the  poorer  classes,  to  check  the  spread  of  disease,  and  to 
prolong  the  term  of  human  life,  while  they  are  works  of  a 
high  and  ennobling  character,  are  yet  duties  involving  the 
gravest  responsibility.  Should  less  care  be  bestowed  upon 
our  fellow  creatures  than  is  daily  afforded  the  lower  animals? 
At  the  present  moment  the  condition  of  many  of  the  working 
classes  is  degraded  in  the  extreme." 

The  Medical  Officer  of  Health  for  St.  Saviour,  Southwark, 
wrote  (1866):— 

"  In  all  our  efforts  at  sanitary  improvement  we  are  chiefly 
dealing  with  persons  who  in  most  instances  have  not  the 
power  of  helping  themselves,  and  who  until  of  late  have  had 
no  source  to  which  they  might  apply  for  aid  in  rendering 
their  dwellings  clean  and  wholesome." 

The  Medical  Officer  of  Health  in  St.  Pancras  wrote : — 

"  All  who  have  made  themselves  acquainted  with  the  con- 
*  Shoreditch,  1859-60. 


OF   LONDON  129 

dition  of  many  of  the  poor  of  London  will  agree  with  me 
when  I  say  that  before  their  moral  or  religious  state  is  likely 
to  be  remedied,  their  physical  condition  must  be  improved, 
and  their  houses  made  more  comfortable.  On  you  devolves, 
to  a  great  extent,  the  solemn  responsibility  for  carrying  out 
the  preparatory  work." 

The  Medical  Officer  of  Health  for  St.  Martin-in-the-Fields 
wrote  to  his  Vestry  in  1858  :  "To  permit  such  grievous 
evils  as  are  to  be  seen  in  the  worst  localities  of  this  great 
city  is  a  contradiction  to  the  teaching  of  Christianity  .  .  . 
such  outrages  on  humanity  as  many  of  the  abodes  of  the 
poor  are  permitted  to  remain. 

"  It  is  unholy,  it  is  unchristian,  that  people  should  herd 
together  in  such  dens ;  and  so  long  as  such  dwellings  are 
allowed  to  be  occupied  our  assumed  religion  must  be  a 
pretence  and  a  sham.  .  ." 

And  thus,  the  Medical  Officer  of  Health  for  Bethnal 
Green : — 

"  To  open  ou-t  avenues  through  our  cul-de-sac  courts,  to 
promote  the  sanitary  condition  of  every  house,  to  arrest  by 
thorough  drainage  and  removal  of  refuse  the  elimination  of 
aerial  poison,  are  the  great  duties  that  we  have  day  by  day 
to  do.  Though  the  task  before  us  be  great,  the  objects  in 
view  are  immeasurably  greater — to  exalt  the  standard  of  life, 
to  economise  rates,  and  above  all  to  decrease  the  sum  of 
misery,  disease,  and  death.  ...  To  supply  the  arm  strong 
to  labour,  to  substitute  productive  for  unproductive  citizens, 
to  decrease  the  death-roll  of  the  young,  and  to  protract  life 
beyond  the  present  span,  these  are  the  tasks  that  sanitary 
science  imposes  on  us." 

The  Medical  Officer  of  Health  for  Clerkenwell  pointed  out 
that — 

"  The  poorer  classes  have  not  the  means  of  remedying 
the  defective  sanitary  conditions  under  which  they  are 
Hving.    But  the  Vestry  has  this  power." 

The  Medical  Officer  of  Health  for  St.  Paneras  made  a 
calculation  that  nearly  1,200  deaths  in  the  parish  in  1858 
were  due  to  causes  which  might  have  been  prevented  by 
sanitary  improvements.     '*  To  every  death  we  may  safely 

10 


130       THE   SANITARY   EVOLUTION 

assume  more  than  thirty  cases  of  illness.  This  gives  us 
36,000  cases  of  preventable  disease  in  the  year." 

"You  will  see,"  wrote  the  Medical  Officer  of  Health  for 
St.  James'  (1856),  "  that  by  diminishing  death  and  disease, 
you  are  diminishing  poverty  and  want.  .  .  .  The  sanitary 
question  lies  at  the  root  of  all  others.  It  is  a  national 
one  and  a  religious  one.  It  is  true  that  in  the  exercise  of 
your  powers  you  will  often  be  met  by  the  assertion  of  the 
rights  of  property,  but  the  right  of  life  stands  before  the 
right  of  property,  and  it  is  this  recognition  of  the  sacred- 
ness  of  human  life  that  lies  at  the  foundation  of  sanitary 
legislation." 

The  Medical  Officer  of  Health  for  "Whitechapel  wrote : — 

"  I  have  in  this  report,  as  in  duty  bound,  spoken  plainly; 
if  in  the  opinion  of  some  members  of  the  Board  too  plainly, 
my  apology  is — the  deep  sense  I  entertain  of  the  importance 
of  sanitary  progress  ;  for  upon  the  success  that  shall  attend 
the  labours  of  those  engaged  in  this  most  sacred  cause 
depends  the  improvement  of  the  social,  moral,  and  intel- 
lectual condition  of  the  people." 

And  the  Medical  Officer  of  Health  for  St.  Giles'  made  this 
pathetic  appeal  for  action  : — 

"  While  you  are  listening  to  the  remainder  of  this  report, 
I  trust  you  will  hold  in  your  mind  how  many  lives  are 
being  sacrificed  every  month  to  deficiencies  in  sanitary 
arrangements." 

It  is  only  here  and  there  in  the  earlier  reports  of  the 
Medical  Officers  of  Health  that  specific  mention  is  made  of 
intemperance,  but  every  reference  to  the  subject  showed 
how  largely  "  drink"  affected  the  sanitary  condition  of  the 
people  and  intensified  and  complicated  the  evil  conditions  in 
which  the  people  were  placed,  and  rendered  any  amelioration, 
physical,  moral,  or  religious,  infinitely  more  difficult. 

It  was  becoming  more  and  more  generally  recognised  that 
a  very  large  proportion  of  the  deaths  and  of  disease  were 
preventable. 

"Any  skilled  eye  glancing  over  the  mortality  tables  will 
observe  that  a  considerable  number  of  deaths  might  have 
been  prevented." 


OF  LONDON  131 

"  We  are  now  to  a  great  extent  aware,"  wrote  the  Medical 
Officer  of  Health  for  St.  Saviour's  (1856),  "  of  the  physical 
conditions  on  which  the  lives  of  individuals  and  communities 
depend." 

The  Medical  Officer  of  Health  for  Fulham  wrote  in 
1857  :— 

"  Sanitary  science  and  experience  have  full  clearly  proved 
to  us  how  great  an  extent  the  prevention  of  disease  and  its 
extension  rests  with  us." 

But  against  contagion  and  infection  no  precautions 
whatever  were  taken,  and  so  disease  was  sown  broadcast 
throughout  the  community,  and  death  followed. 

As  to  suggested  remedies  and  action  there  was  a  chorus  of 
absolute  unanimity  upon  some  points : — 

*'  The  principal  cause  of  the  extent  of  zymotic  disease," 
wrote  the  Medical  Officer  of  Health  for  Mile-End-Old-Town, 
in  1859,  "  is  the  defective  state  of  the  habitations  of  the 
poorer  classes.  The  remedy  for  the  evil  is  only  to  be  secured 
by  a  systematic  house  visitation. 

"...  Without  a  general  house  inspection  it  is  impossible 
to  secure  the  proper  entry  to  and  use  of  the  expensive  sewers 
which  have  been  and  are  being  constructed, 

"Having  done  so  much  for  the  streets,  pavements,  and 
drains,  the  improvements  vdll  lose  half  their  salutary  effect 
if  the  interior  of  the  dwellings  are  not  placed  in  a  corre- 
sponding condition  of  wholesome  cleanliness." 

"It  is,"  wrote  the  Medical  Officer  of  Health  for  White- 
chapel,  "  to  the  interior  of  the  houses  that  our  attention 
must  be  directed,  for  it  is  here  that  the  source  of  disease  is 
usually  found.  .  .  .  An  habitual  and  detailed  inspection  of  the 
houses  occupied  by  the  poorer  classes  is  therefore  essential." 

A  house-to-house  visitation  was,  indeed,  the  first  essential. 
By  no  other  means  could  the  actual  condition  of  the  abodes 
of  the  people  be  ascertained,  and  the  breeding  places  of 
disease  be  discovered,  cleared  out,  and  rendered  innocuous. 
And  as  there  was  a  never  ceasing  tendency  on  the  part  of 
the  poorer  classes  to  sink  into  a  condition  of  uncleanliness, 
and  on  the  part  of  their  abodes  to  fall  into  dilapidation,  or, 
as  it  was  expressed,  "  a  pertinacity  for  dirt,"  so  was  constant 


132       THE   SANITARY  EVOLUTION 

inspection  and  supervision  of  vital  necessity  for  the  main- 
tenance of  any  improvements  made. 

"  There  are,"  wrote  the  Medical  Officer  of  Health  for  St. 
Pancras  (1858),  "  many  parts  of  the  parish  densely  crowded. 
Some  of  the  people  have  become  so  used  to  filth,  they  appear 
to  prefer  it  to  cleanliness  ;  at  any  rate,  they  have  not  the 
energy  to  get  rid  of  it  and  improve  their  condition.  Such 
houses — perfect  hotbeds  of  infectious  diseases — ought  to  be 
visited  two  or  three  times  a  year.  ..." 

The  Medical  Officers  of  Health  had  one  valuable  object 
lesson  before  them  in  the  common  lodging-houses,  which, 
regulated  and  inspected  by  the  police  under  the  Acts  passed 
by  Parliament,  had  shown  that  even  the  very  worst  con- 
ditions of  life  could  be  ameliorated,  and  that  the  very 
lowest  and  most  miserable  classes  of  society  were  not 
beyond  improvement. 

"  The  chief  points  which  are  regulated  by  the  authorities 
(the  Police)  are  cleanliness,  drainage  and  water  supply,  the 
separation  of  the  sexes,  and  the  prevention  of  overcrowding. 
The  testimony  of  all  who  are  acquainted  with  the  dwellings 
of  the  poor  is  concurrent  as  to  the  immense  sanitary  advan- 
tages gained  by  the  provisions  of  the  Common  Lodging 
Houses  Act,  and  the  results  had  been  to  improve  in  a  marked 
degree  the  health,  habits,  and  morals  of  the  persons  using 
these  places."  * 

"  The  cleanliness,  comfort,  and  ventilation  of  the  licensed 
rooms  in  common  lodging  houses  offer  a  very  marked 
contrast  to  those  which  are  unUcensed."  + 

To  more  than  one  of  these  officers  the  idea  occurred  that 
similar  benefits  would  follow  if  tenement  houses  were 
similarly  inspected. 

"I  believe  considerable  good  might  be  accomplished  by  a 
legislative  enactment  placing  every  house  let  out  in  weekly 
tenements  to  more  than  one  family  under  similar  regulations 
to  those  affecting  common  lodging-houses,  and  rendering 
landlords  liable  for  permitting  overcrowding  to  exist  upon 
their  property." 

The  success  of  the  common  lodging  houses  was  due  to  the 
-  St.  Giles',  1857-8.  f  St.  Olave,  South wark,  1856. 


OF  LONDON  133 

enforcement  upon  the  owner  of  the  first  essentials  of  sanita- 
tion in  the  house  he  let  to  occupants,  and  to  the  regular 
"inspection"  of  his  house  to  secure  that  those  essentials 
were  maintained  in  a  state  of  efficiency. 

But  it  was  just  these  two  things  that  were  most  held  in 
abhorrence  by  the  majority  of  tenement-house  owners  in 
London. 

The  Medical  Officer  of  Health  for  the  Strand,  after  de- 
scribing the  overcrowding  of  tenement-houses,  wrote  (1858): — 

"No  remedy  it  is  feared  will  be  found  until  all  houses 
of  the  class  alluded  to,  the  rooms  of  which  are  let  out  as 
separate  tenancies,  shall  be  compulsorily  registered  under 
the  supervision  of  the  Local  Authority  of  the  District  in 
which  they  are  situate,  as  fit  for  the  accommodation  of  a 
certain  number  of  persons,  and  no  more." 

"  This  suggestion  will  doubtless  excite  the  sneers  of  the 
ignorant,  the  fears  of  the  weak,  and  the  ridicule  of  the 
selfish,  coupled  with  the  usual  expressions  about  interference 
with  the  liberty  of  the  subject;  but  the  upright  and 
unprejudiced  will  not  fail  to  perceive  that  it  is  the  liberty 
and  the  health  of  the  working  classes,  forming,  as  they 
do,  so  large  a  proportion  of  the  mass  of  the  people  which  it 
is  sought  to  protect  from  the  tyrannical  and  grasping 
covetousness  of  an  avaricious  few  who  care  little  whether 
the  health  of  the  working  man  be  destroyed,  or  whether 
his  children  be  reared  up  in  such  a  way  that  disease  and 
vice  must  almost  necessarily  result,  provided  they  succeed 
in  obtaining  for  themselves  an  additional  percentage  upon 
their  investment." 

And  the  following  year  he  again  forcibly  adverted  to  the 
subject. 

"  When  it  is  borne  in  mind  that  in  some  of  the  small  courts 
in  this  District  there  are  packed  together  as  many  persons 
as  almost  equal  in  number  the  soldiers  congregated  in  a 
commodious  barracks,  is  the  high  death-rate  a  matter  of 
surprise  ?  But  what  can  be  done  ?  The  authorities,  general 
or  local,  cannot  surely  be  expected  toprovide  suitable  dwellings 
for  the  people  !  Undoubtedly  they  cannot ;  but  it  is  incum- 
bent upon  these  authorities,  in  the  interest  of  the  well-being 


134       THE  SANITARY  EVOLUTION 

of  all  classes  of  the  community,  to  place  a  prohibitive  limit  in 
regard  of  overcrowding  upon  the  class  of  houses  the  rooms  of 
which  are  let  out  as  separate  tenements,  which  would, 
without  hardship  upon  their  occupants,  speedily  produce 
the  desired  effect.  Such  a  condition,  practically  speaking, 
already  exists  in  regard  of  most  of  the  Public  Institutions  of 
this  country  in  which  large  numbers  of  persons  reside ;  such 
a  condition  is  enacted  by  law  in  regard  of  our  emigrant  ships  : 
such  a  condition  is  enforced  by  Act  of  Parliament  in  regard 
of  Common  Lodging  Houses  :  and  in  all  these  instances  the 
principle  works  well.  Is  it  reasonable,  then,  that  in  relation 
to  the  influence  of  over-crowding  upon  health  and  life,  less 
care  should  be  taken  of  the  people  who  occupy  the  densely 
populated  districts  of  our  great  towns  and  cities  than  is 
already  provided  by  law  for  the  inmates  of  our  Common 
Lodging  Houses,  or  for  the  paupers  admitted  into  our  Work- 
houses, or  for  the  emigrants  who  leave  our  shores  ?  Surely 
the  injustice  cannot  but  be  apparent." 

Other  suggestions  were  also  made. 

The  Medical  Officer  of  Health  for  Whitechapel  wrote 
(1859)  :— 

"  If  the  public  is  to  enjoy  health,  and  a  freedom  from  the 
ravages  of  epidemic  disease,  a  stop  must  be  put  to  the  present 
scheme  of  erecting  houses  in  crowded  situations ;  for  although 
the  rights  of  property  are  to  be  respected,  yet,  in  my  opinion, 
such  rights  are  of  secondary  consideration  when  compared 
with  the  public  health  and  the  increased  burdens  which  must 
be  borne  by  the  ratepayers  to  support  those  whose  sickness  is 
occasioned  by  the  unhealthiness  of  the  localities  where  they 
reside." 

Several  urged  the  vigorous  enforcement  of  the  existing 
law.  To  the  Vestry  of  Lambeth  the  Medical  Officer  of 
Health  wrote  in  his  report  in  1856 : — 

"  You  must  proceed  actively  against  those  who  have  raised 
the  value  of  their  possessions  by  ignoring  the  value  of  human 
life,  who  wilfully  multiply  disease  by  neglect  of  their 
pestiferous  property." 

The  Medical  Officer  of  Health  for  Hackney  wrote  (1858) : — 

"  I  feel  assured  that  it  cannot  be  too  widely  known  that 


OF  LONDON  136 

individuals  will  not  be  allowed  to  deal  with  their  property 
in  such  a  manner  as  to  cause  injury  to  the  public  health. 
For  although  individual  liberty  has  long  been  the  boast  of 
England,  yet  there  is  a  point  beyond  which  it  cannot  be 
tolerated  with  safety;  and  private  good  should  always  be 
made  to  give  way  to  the  public  welfare." 

The  greater  the  light  thrown  upon  the  sanitary  condition 
of  the  people  of  London,  the  clearer  became  the  fact  that  the 
principal  blame  therefor  rested  upon  the  house-owner,  lessee, 
or  middleman,  or  as  Parliament  defined  him,  "the  owner." 

Many  of  the  Medical  Officers  of  Health  were  outspoken 
and  unhesitating  in  their  opinion  as  to  the  responsibility  of 
the  house-owner  for  the  existing  condition  of  the  dwellings 
of  the  people. 

"  The  enemies  of  the  poorer  classes,"  wrote  the  Medical 
Officer  of  Health  for  Clerkenwell,  "  are  the  landlords,  who 
know  well  that  proper  lodgings  for  the  really  poor  do  not 
exist.  They  know  also  that  if  they  buy  at  a  cheap  rate  any 
old  premises  not  fit  for  a  pig-sty  and  let  them  cheaply  they 
will  be  sure  to  find  tenants." 

If  it  was  not  the  real  owner  of  the  house,  it  was  the 
middleman  or  person  or  persons  between  the  owner  and  the 
tenant.  Eents  were  high  in  most  parts  of  London  where 
there  was  urgent  demand  for  accommodation,  and  "  the 
yearly  rental  is  unfortunately  in  many  cases  still  further 
increased  by  the  '  middleman  system  ' ;  many  of  the  houses 
being  rented  by  an  individual  who  sub-lets  them  in  separate 
rooms  as  weekly  tenancies,  and  this  at  an  increase  of  20  per 
cent.  (Strand  1856)  :— 

"And  thus  it  is  that  health  and  life  are  daily  sacrificed  at 
the  shrine  of  gain." 

What  sort  of  property  some  of  them  held,  and  the  condition 
in  which  they  allowed  it  to  remain,  whilst  they  drew  their 
"  gain  "  from  it,  is  graphically  illustrated  by  the  Medical 
Officer  of  Health  in  St.  Olave's,  Southwark  (1856). 

He  thus  described  the  houses  in  three  small  courts  : — 

"  The  whole  of  these  houses  are  held  by  one  person,  and 
it  is  impossible  to  imagine  any  state  much  worse  than  the 
condition  of  everything  connected  with  their  drainage,  &c. 


136        THE   SANITARY  EVOLUTION 

"Here,  within  a  small  area,  are  thirty-nine  houses,  all 
having  open  foul  privies,  cesspools  all  filled,  and  many 
overflowing.  The  yards  are  foul,  dirty,  damp,  and 
wretchedly  paved  with  small,  loose,  broken  bricks — most 
of  them  are  daily  filled  with  the  overflowing  of  the  drains 
and  cesspools,  the  drains  are  all  untrapped,  and  scarcely  a 
house  has  a  proper  receptacle  for  water;  they  are  mostly 
broken,  dilapidated,  uncovered  tubs,  placed  close  to  the 
cesspools,  so  as  to  absorb  the  foul  gases  emanating  from 
them.  The  effluvium  on  entering  any  of  these  places  is 
abominable,  and  greatly  complained  of.  .  .  . 

"  These  three  courts  are  thickly  inhabited." 

In  the  following  month  he  reported  nineteen  houses  in 
two  streets  very  much  the  same  as  above.  In  the  next 
month  twenty  more — in  the  month  after,  thirty  more.  He 
might  almost  have  had  the  general  description  printed,  with 
blanks  for  filling  up  the  number  of  such  houses  and  where 
situated. 

If  it  had  not  been  for  the  new  Acts  passed  in  1855,  this 
condition  of  things  would  doubtless  have  continued  in- 
definitely. That  condition  had  been  reached  under  absence 
of  inspection,  or  regulation,  and  freedom  on  the  part  of  the 
owner  to  do  as  he  liked ;  and  had  no  laws  been  enacted 
to  terminate  it,  no  change  would  ever  have  been  effected. 

And  when  efforts  were  made  by  the  local  authorities 
to  remedy  similar  places,  strong  opposition  was  met  with. 
Thus  in  Hackney  (1856-7)  :— 

"1839  nuisances  have  been  rooted  out.  In  very  many 
cases  prosecutions  have  been  ordered  by  the  Board.  They 
were  almost  invariably  opposed  by  the  offenders,  generally 
people  of  substance,  with  the  advantage  of  able  legal  aid, 
in  the  most  pertinacious  and  resolute  manner.  ..." 

The  novelty  of  enforcing  upon  the  owners  the  improve- 
ments deemed  necessary  naturally  raised  in  the  minds  of 
some  of  the  Medical  Officers  of  Health  the  question  as  to 
the  justice  of  such  a  proceeding.  Those  who  discussed  it 
were  clear  upon  the  point. 

Thus  the  Medical  Officer  of  Health  for  Shoreditch 
(1856-7)  wrote:— 


OF  LONDON  137 

"  The  question  of  putting  houses  into  a  condition  fit 
for  habitation  has  two  bearings.  It  is,  first,  a  question 
between  the  landlords  and  the  tenants,  whose  health  is 
sacrificed  by  neglect.  It  is,  in  the  next  place,  a  question 
between  the  landlords  and  the  ratepayers. 

"  If  the  landlords  neglect  to  make  the  necessary  outlay  in 
improving  their  property,  the  expense  of  maintaining  that 
property  in  its  unhealthy  condition  is  thrown  upon  the 
ratepayers,  for  these  have  to  bear  the  burden  of  supporting 
the  sick  and  the  destitute." 

And  the  Medical  Officer  of  Health  for  Clerkenwell : — 

"At  present  the  poor  rates  are  raised  by  the  parish 
having  to  pay  the  expenses  of  afflicted  poor  persons,  whose 
misery  has  in  most  instances  arisen  from  defective 
sanitary  arrangements,  the  remedying  of  which  ought  to 
have  been  effected  at  the  expense  of  the  landlords,  who 
derive  their  substance  from  the  miseries  of  the  poor." 

And  the  Medical  Officer  of  Health  for  St.  George's, 
Hanover  Square : — 

"I  am  compelled  to  say  that  the  number  of  dingy  and 
dilapidated  houses  is  a  proof  either  that  the  owners  of 
house  property  do  not  exercise  sufficient  control  over  their 
tenants,  or  that  they  themselves  are  grievously  neglectful  of 
their  duties  to  their  tenants  and  to  society  at  large.  The 
health  of  the  Parish  should  not  be  allowed  to  suffer  through 
the  default  of  either  landlord  or  tenant.  .  .  .  Here  there 
need  be  no  scruple  about  interference  with  private  property. 

"  No  man  is  allowed  to  sell  poisonous  food,  and  none 
should  be  allowed  to  sell  poisonous  lodgings,  more  especially 
as  the  effects  of  poisonous  food  are  confined  to  the  persons 
who  eat  it — the  effects  of  unwholesome  apartments  may  be 
diseases  that  may  be  spread." 

On  the  equity  of  compelling  the  owners  to  put  their 
houses  in  order,  there  are  many  insisters. 

"  It  is  but  right,"  wrote  the  Medical  Officer  of  Health  for 
Fulham  (1857),  "  that  those  who  have  hitherto  fed  their 
own  resources  by  impoverishing  others,  should  now  in  their 
turn  make  good  the  damage." 

The  Medical  Officer  of  Health  for  Poplar  (1856),  wrote:— 


138       THE   SANITARY  EVOLUTION 

"  While  on  the  one  hand  we  must  not  proceed  in  a 
reckless  manner  so  to  burden  property  as  to  render  it 
entirely  unproductive,  yet  on  the  other  we  cannot  allow 
the  labouring  man,  whose  health  is  the  only  property  he 
can  call  his  own,  to  live  in  unwholesome  places  to  the 
destruction  of  that  capital,  by  which  alone  he  is  enabled 
to  support  himself  and  family." 

And  the  Medical  Officer  of  Health  for  Mile-End-Old- 
Town  (1856)  :— 

"...  To  charge  such  property  (viz.,  in  bad  condition 
and  heavily  encumbered)  with  the  costs  of  thorough  repair, 
would  leave  the  owners  in  some  instances,  I  am  fully  aware, 
destitute,  but  life  is  more  sacred,  and  possesses  higher  rights 
than  property,  and  it  cannot  be  just  to  inflict  or  continue 
a  public  injury  while  endeavouring  to  spare  and  sympathise 
with  the  inconvenience  of  an  individual." 

That  the  evil  state  of  the  dwellings  of  the  poorer  classes 
entailed  a  charge  upon  the  public  was  also  pointed  out 
by  the  Medical  Officer  of  Health  for  Bethnal  Green,  who, 
referring  to  the  miserable  homes  in  the  parish,  wrote  : — 

*'  From  the  cradle  to  the  grave  their  inmates  are  a  direct 
charge  upon  our  funds." 

Happily  the  law  was  beginning  to  be  enforced,  and 
beginning  to  create  a  little  alarm  among  some  house-owners. 

"  As  landlords  are  now  aware  that  their  property  will  be 
visited  in  rotation  by  the  Inspector,  the  necessary  alterations 
and  improvements  are  frequently  effected  by  them  in 
anticipation."  * 

Others  did  the  necessary  work  when  ordered  to  do  it 
by  the  sanitary  authority. 

Others,  however,  not  until  legal  proceedings  were  taken, 
and  they  were  ordered  by  the  magistrate  to  do  it — and  even 
then  some  would  not  obey  the  magistrate's  order,  and  the 
work  had  to  be  done  by  the  sanitary  authority,  and  the  cost 
thereof  levied  from  the  owner. 

One  case  was  recorded  by  the  Medical  Officer  of  Health 
for  St.  Giles',  in  1858-9,  in  which  the  authority  of  the 
law  was  more  strongly  asserted. 

-  Whitechapel,  1857. 


OF  LONDON  139 

"While  speaking  of  the  resistance  met  with  in  enforcing 
sanitary  requirements,  it  may  be  here  mentioned  that  the 
extreme  step  of  imprisoning  the  owner  of  a  certain  house 
has  been  had  recourse  to  for  his  obstinate  refusal  to  comply 
with  a  magistrate's  order." 

That  disease  and  sickness  among  the  people  entailed  a 
great  loss  and  heavy  burden  upon  the  community  appears 
scarcely  to  have  received  any  recognition  up  to  this,  and  yet 
it  was  a  truth  of  far-reaching  importance.  That  individuals 
suffered  was  of  course  clear,  but  that  the  community  did 
was  by  no  means  realised. 

Several  of  the  Medical  Officers  of  Health  promptly 
discerned  how  true  it  was,  and  in  their  earlier  reports  dwelt 
upon  it,  pointing  out  the  effects,  and  emphasising  their 
great  importance. 

"It  cannot  be  too  often  impressed  upon  our  minds," 
wrote  one,  "  that  sickness  among  the  poor  is  the  great 
cause  of  pressure  upon  the  rates ;  and  everything  that  will 
tend  to  diminish  the  number  of  sick  will  be  so  much  saved 
to  the  ratepayers."  * 

"  The  greater  the  amount  of  disease,"  wrote  another, 
**  the  larger  the  proportion  of  pauperism." 

"  Of  the  causes  of  pauperism,  none  are  so  common  as 
disease  and  death,"  wrote  another. 

Indeed,  a  little  consideration  must  have  demonstrated 
its  truth.  Difficult  as  it  was  for  the  individual  in  health 
to  earn  a  livelihood — when  sickness  fell  upon  him  there  was 
the  instant  and  complete  cessation  of  his  wages,  and  there 
were  expenses  incurred  by  his  sickness.  If  he  recovered, 
there  had  been  a  long  disablement  from  work,  and  a  heavy 
loss.  If,  however,  he  died,  the  community  suffered  by  the 
loss  of  his  productive  labour,  and,  where  the  victim  was  the 
bread-winner  of  a  family,  his  widow  and  children  but  too 
commonly  became  a  charge  upon  the  rates. 

"  High  mortality  in  a  district,"  wrote  the  Medical  Officer 
of  Health  for  Clerkenwell  (1858),  "  especially  among  the 
poor  who  are  the  principal  sufferers,  does  not  relate  simply 
to  the  dead ;  the  living  are  also  deeply  concerned.     Every 

*  Whitechapel. 


140       THE   SANITARY  EVOLUTION 

death  in  a  poor  family  causes  an  interruption  to  the 
ordinary  remunerative  labour,  and  produces  expenses  which 
have  to  be  paid  out  of  scanty  wages.  Hence  the  living 
suffer  from  want ;  the  parish  funds  must  be  appealed  to ; 
families  become  parentless,  and  next  comes  crime." 

The  Medical  Officer  of  Health  for  Whitechapel  (1858) 
wrote  : — 

"  In  the  course  of  time  the  public  will  learn  that  sickness, 
with  its  concomitant  evils,  viz.,  the  loss  of  wages,  the  calls 
upon  clubs  and  friendly  societies,  the  increased  amount  of 
charitable  contributions,  a  heavier  poor  rate,  &c.,  entails 
more  expense  upon  the  community  than  would  be  required 
to  carry  out  sanitary  improvements  in  widening  streets, 
converting  the  culs-de-sac  into  thoroughfares,  and  in  erecting 
more  commodious  houses  for  the  poor." 

And  the  Medical  Officer  of  Health  for  the  Strand 
wrote  : — 

"  Of  every  death  which  occurs  in  this  district  over  and 
above  the  ordinary  rate  of  mortality,  the  number  of  cases 
of  illness  in  excess  must  be  a  high  multiple.  And  during 
every  attack  of  severe  illness  the  patient,  whatever  his 
position  in  life  may  be,  must  be  maintained — if  wealthy, 
at  his  own  expense,  if  poor,  at  that  of  the  community  at 
large.  And  in  the  latter  case,  the  community  at  large  must 
thus  suffer  a  direct  loss.  Health  is  money,  as  much  as  time 
is  money,  and  sooner  or  later  sickness  must  be  paid  for 
out  of  the  common  fund.  .  .  ." 

And  the  Medical  Officer  of  Health  for  Shoreditch  (1856) 
wrote  : — 

"  To  communities  as  well  as  to  individuals  there  is 
nothing  so  expensive,  so  fatal  to  prosperity,  as  sickness. 
To  a  productive  and  labouring  community,  health  is  the 
chief  estate.  ...  A  community  is  but  a  system  of 
individuals — if  one  portion  of  that  system  be  disabled  by 
sickness,  every  other  portion  will  feel  the  blow ;  the  whole 
community  will  be  taxed  to  support  that  part  which  is 
rendered  incapable  of  supporting  itself.  It  is  then  a  plain 
matter  of  self-interest,  as  well  as  of  solemn  obligation,  to 
exercise  the  most  vigilant  care  in  preserving  to  the  poor 


OF   LONDON  141 

their  only  worldly  possession,  their  health  and  capacity  for 
self-support." 

Nor  did  the  danger  to  the  great  community  of  London, 
from  the  prevalence  of  sickness  in  any  particular  district, 
appear  to  have  received  the  faintest  recognition. 

And  yet,  in  the  matter  of  health,  and  protection  from 
infection,  all  classes  from  the  highest  to  the  lowest  had 
equal  interest ;  for  disease  commencing  or  raging  in  one 
district  is  not  long  in  spreading  to  other  districts. 

The  Medical  Officer  of  Health  for  Chelsea  (1857-8) 
wrote : — 

"  It  cannot  need  any  argument  to  prove  that  diseases 
of  an  epidemic  or  infectious  nature  cannot  be  arrested  in 
their  progress  by  the  imaginary  line  drawn  around  the 
boundaries  of  the  parish — that  the  smoke  from  the  furnaces 
in  Lambeth  and  Vauxhall  must  be  wafted  across  the 
Thames  and  influence  the  health  of  the  inhabitants  of 
Chelsea,  if  not  kept  in  check,  and  that  evils  of  minor 
importance  in  Pimlico,  on  one  side,  and  Kensington  on 
the  other,  may  be  quite  as  prejudicial  to  the  health  of  the 
neighbours  residing  on  this  side  of  the  boundary  as  to  those 
among  whom  they  are  generated." 

That  any  one  locality  had  a  duty  to  its  neighbours,  still 
less  to  London  as  a  whole,  as  well  as  to  the  people  of  its 
own  area,  was  beyond  the  range  of  the  ideas  of  the  vestries 
and  district  boards.  Indeed,  if  their  sense  of  duty  did  not 
induce  them  to  look  after  and  safeguard  the  people  for 
whose  sanitary  condition  they  were  immediately  responsible, 
how  could  it  be  expected  of  them  to  be  influenced  by 
considerations  as  to  those  residing  outside  their  area,  and 
residing  many  miles  away. 

And  yet,  by  the  very  condition  of  things,  this  greater 
responsibility  did  exist. 

But  the  great  fact  that  in  the  vital  matter  of  the  public 
health  London  was  one  great  community,  the  various  parts 
thereof  being  indissolubly  welded  together  into  one  great 
whole,  had  not  as  yet  apparently  dawned  upon  the  minds  of 
the  newly-created  local  authorities  ;  nor,  indeed,  had  Parlia- 
ment even  reahsed  it,  for  it  had  left  the  forty  and  more  of 


142       THE   SANITARY    EVOLUTION 

those  authorities  full  freedom  to  scatter  disease  of  the 
deadliest  type  from  one  end  of  London  to  the  other,  and  to 
imperil  the  lives  of  London's  inhabitants. 

The  reports  of  one  of  the  Medical  Officers  of  Health  give 
such  an  exceptionally  complete  and  vivid  description  of  the 
condition  of  the  parish  to  which  he  had  been  appointed,  and 
in  which  he  worked,  that  a  series  of  extracts  from  them  are 
given. 

The  parish  was  the  parish  of  St.  G-eorge-the-Martyr  in 
Southwark,  on  the  south  side  of  the  river,  just  opposite  the 
City;  "low-lying  and  flat,  and  about  half  a  foot  below 
Trinity  high-water  mark,"  with  an  area  of  282  acres,  and  a 
population  of  about  52,000  persons,  and  the  Medical  Officer 
of  Health  was  Dr.  William  Eendle,  who  speaks  of  himself 
as  "an  old  parish  surgeon." 

"If  a  loose  drain  conducts  stenches  into  a  man's  house 
instead  of  out  of  it,  if  the  concentrated  filthiness  of  a  gully 
is  blown  into  a  front  door  or  window,  if  a  house  often  visited 
with  fever  has  not  been  cleansed  or  whitewashed  for  many 
years,  if  there  is  no  water  but  putrid  water  filled  with  dis- 
gusting living  creatures,  and  no  butt  except  a  rotten  one, 
not  even  the  most  enthusiastic  lover  of  things  as  they  are 
can  find  fault  with  us  if  we  try  to  alter  these  things  for  the 
better.  .  .  . 

"Let  us  picture  to  ourselves  the  man  of  the  alley  come 
home  from  work. 

"  The  house  is  filthy,  the  look  of  it  is  dingy  and  repulsive, 
the  air  is  close  and  depressing ;  he  is  thirsty  :  the  water-butt, 
decayed  and  lined  with  disgusting  green  vegetation,  stands 
open  nigh  a  drain,  and  foul  liquids  which  cannot  run  off  are 
about  it,  tainting  it  with  an  unwholesome  and  unpleasant 
taste ;  the  refuse  heap  with  decaying  vegetable  matter  is 
near,  and  the  dilapidated  privy  and  cesspool  send  up  heavy, 
poisonous,  and  depressing  gases.  Such  are  the  homes,  may 
I  say,  of  thousands  in  this  parish  ?  " 

He  contrasts  the  public-house  with  that,  and  says :  "  The 
surprise  is  not  so  much  that  one  man  here  and  there  reels 
home  drunk  and  a  savage,  as  that  for  every  such  a  one  there 
are  not  twenty.     Gentlemen  of  the  Vestry  who  have  seen 


OF   LONDON  143 

these  things  can  bear  me  witness  that  I  do  not  exaggerate. 
This  is  no  fancied  statement.  .  .  . 

"This  parish  has  always  been  remarkable  for  its  deathly 
pre-eminence.  Hitherto  there  has  been  no  sufficient  law. 
After  this  we  shall  stand  without  excuse.  .  .  . 

"...  Who  is  to  say,  when  the  question  is  improvement, 
as  to  where  we  shall  stop  ?  No  doubt  there  is  a  question  of 
more  or  less  rapid  progress,  so  as  to  hurt  existing  interests 
as  little  as  may  be.  .  .  . 

"  Our  intrusive  visits,  as  some  would  call  them,  into  filthy 
and  diseased  houses,  benevolent  as  they  are,  on  behalf  of 
those  who  cannot  always  help  themselves,  have  example 
even  in  the  most  remote  times  and  from  the  highest 
authority.  The  ancient  authority  was  more  imperative,  and 
made  it  more  a  matter  of  conscience.  In  the  ancient 
Jewish  law  it  was  ordained  '  that  he  that  owneth  the 
house  shall  himself  come  and  tell  the  Priest,  saying:  "It 
seemeth  to  me  there  is,  as  it  were,  a  plague  in  the  house."  ' 
The  Priest  was  "then  to  command  the  emptying  it,  so  that 
"all  in  the  house  be  not  made  unclean."  He  was  then  to 
cause  it  to  be  scraped  within  and  about,  and  finally  he 
was  to  pronounce  when  the  house  was  clean,  and  might  be 
again  inhabited. 

"  The  Priest  was,  you  perceive,  the  Medical  Officer  of 
Health  under  the  Jewish  law,  and  this  text  of  Leviticus  is 
the  13th  section  of  the  Diseases  Prevention  Act.  .  .  . 

"  From  what  I  see  of  the  parish  we  cannot  without  incon- 
veniently close  packing  hold  many  more.* 

"  The  growth  of  our  parish  is  not  from  births  alone  ;  some 
persons  of  course  immigrate  from  other  parts  of  England, 
but  the  greater  part  come  from  Ireland,  bringing  with  them 
disease  and  poverty.  ... 

"I  am  afraid  that  the  poor  of  other  parishes  are  forced 
upon  us.  We  increase  in  poverty,  and,  paradoxical  as 
it  looks,  the  poorer  we  get  the  more  we  shall  have  to 
pay. 

"  There  are  now  from  6-7,000  cases  of  illness  per  year 
attended  by  the  poor-law  surgeons. 

*  Popidation  went  up  from  51,824  in  1851  to  60,278  in  1896. 


144       THE   SANITARY  EVOLUTION 


"  Our  poor  work  at  the  waterside,  in  the  city,  and  at  the 
docks ;  their  productive  labour  helps  to  pay  the  rates  of  other 
parishes,  but  in  difficulty  and  sickness  they  live  and  lean 
upon  us. 

"  Now  as  to  overcrowding  : — 

In  Lewisham  there  are  2  persons  to  an  acre. 


,,   Camberwell 

>> 

13 

„   Eotherhithe 

>5 

21 

„   All  London 

>> 

30 

,,  Newington 

5  J 

104 

While  we  have 

184 

And  in   one   of 

the 

parts  of  the  parish 

244 

J         ») 

>> 

"  Our  parish  is  now  almost  completely  built  over. 

"  In  1850,  out  of  1,169  deaths  565  (or  one  half)  were  under 
5  years. 

"  In  Bermondsey,  506  out  of  983. 

"  Our  parish  and  Bermondsey  are  quite  ahead  (of  others) 
in  this  unenviable  race  towards  death." 

"  The  contents  of  our  sewers  can  only  be  discharged  4 
hours  each  tide — 8  hours  each  day — the  remaining  16  hours 
daily  they  are  reservoirs  of  stagnant  sewage." 

*'  We  are  sadly  deficient  in  sewers.  At  least  100  courts, 
alleys,  and  back  streets  are  entirely  without  drainage.  .  .  . 
Some  of  our  sewers  have  remarkably  little  incline.  That 
in  Friar  Street,  a  most  important  one,  is  so  level  from 
Bean  Street  to  Suffolk  Street  that  it  has  a  most  curious 
quality  for  a  sewer,  that  of  flowing  either  way  equally 
well. 

"  One  very  prevalent  evil  is  loose  brick  drains  which  let 
the  deadly  gases  into  houses." 

"...  We  are  a  most  melancholy  parish,  low  in  level 
and  low  in  circumstances.  The  lowest  and  poorest  of 
the  human  race  drop  from  higher  and  richer  parishes 
into  our  courts  and  alleys,  and  the  liquid  filth  of  higher 
places  finds  its  way  down  to  us.  We  receive  the 
refuse  as  well  as  the  outcomings  of  more  happily  situated 
places." 


OF  LONDON  145 

His  report  for  1857  continued  his  description  : — 

"We  lose  annually  30  per  1,000  —  there  are  only  two 
parishes  worse  than  we  are.  Some  at  least  of  this  mortality 
is  preventable.  If  we  could  keep  to  the  average  of  all 
London  we  should  lose  300  less  a  year ;  or  even  to  that  of 
Bethnal  Green  we  should  lose  200  less. 

"  Few  people  believe  we  are  so  bad  as  we  really  are,  and  if 
we  do  not  believe  we  shall  not  of  course  try  to  mend  it,  but 
it  cannot  be  denied. 

"  The  rich  Londoners  pay  a  low  poor-rate.  The  poor 
Londoners  pay  a  high  poor-rate.  This  bears  hardly  upon 
us  ;  it  stifles  us :  more  and  more  packed,  more  and  more 
impoverished  ;  with  very  little  space  between  the  poor  rate- 
payer and  the  pauper,  there  is  more  sickness  and  death. 

"Density  of  population  brings  you  more  deaths,  more 
sickness,  more  expense. 

"  The  dreadfully  vitiated  air  of  our  courts  and  close  rooms 
produces  and  fosters  consumption." 

Commenting  on  the  common  lodging-houses,  he  wrote : — 

"  The  police  regulations  for  order,  cleanliness,  and  preven- 
tion of  disease  are  in  the  highest  degree  satisfactory.  .  .  . 
The  benefits  are  so  great  that  the  employment  of  the  same 
regulations  in  the  more  crowded  and  filthier  houses  of  the 
poor  can  only  be  a  question  of  time.  It  is  the  highest 
humanity  to  quicken  the  progress. 

"  Vestries  have  power  sufficient  for  the  purpose.  The  need 
is  so  great,  so  undoubted  by  those  who  have  seen  the  evils 
with  their  own  eyes,  and  the  benefit  to  be  obtained  so 
certain,  that  if  the  local  authorities  do  not  enforce  the  im- 
provements, the  police  will  have  to  do  it. 

"As  to  the  overcrowding,  I  have  brought  many  cases  before 
you,  each  from  illness  resulting  difficult  of  cure,  constantly 
recurring.  '  I  can  never  get  out  of  that  house,'  said  the 
district  surgeon  of  one  of  them.  The  eight  rooms  in  this 
house  were  always  full,  the  receipts  £2  2s.  a  week,  yet  it 
was  dirty,  neglected,  and  overcrowded.  So  the  poor  live, 
and  I  may  say,  so  they  die." 

"As  to  some  manufactories,  some  of  them  are  very  bad, 
and  their  pernicious  influence  spreads  widely.     I  do  not 

11 


146       THE   SANITARY   EVOLUTION 

think  any  manufacturer  should  be  obliged  to  leave ;  trades 
must,  of  course,  be  protected ;  but  one  man  must  not,  to 
save  a  little  expense  in  his  building  and  machinery,  be 
allowed  to  poison  a  neighbourhood,  containing  as  this  does 
some  30,000  people. 

"  There  are  various  ways  of  making  almost  all  of  them 
bearable." 

"  In  this  parish  are  at  least  4,000  houses  rated  under  ;610 
a  year,  and  containing  30,000  persons." 

1858.     1st  Quarter  : — 

"  Of  smallpox  and  vaccination  there  are  some  who  neglect 
this  great  precaution,  and  so  not  only  imperil  themselves  but 
others.  Here  is  the  evil,  and  indeed,  I  believe,  the  reason 
why  the  disease  is  not  altogether  banished." 

"...  A  case  registered  as  diphtheria  occurred  and 
died ;  it  began  in  one  of  the  very  worst  localities  and  then 
extended  to  opener  and  better  places.  Thus  it  is  that 
modern  society  neglects  the  social  condition  of  its  poor,  and 
the  poor  with  a  well-ordered  revenge  bring  disease  and 
death  as  a  consequence." 

Eeferring  to  some  tables  he  compiled,  he  said  : — 

"In  this  table  appear  42  deaths  from  consumption;  it 
has  but  recently  become  prominent  how  very  preventable  a 
disease  this  is  .  .  .  the  principal  causes  have  here  been 
made  obvious  enough :  sleeping  closely  in  ill-ventilated 
rooms,  overcrowding,  and  bad  ventilation." 

"  It  is  now  quite  established  that,  with  close  overcrowded 
rooms — that  is,  by  assiduously  causing  the  continued  breath- 
ing a  tainted  atmosphere — you  may  insure  consumption  in 
the  most  healthy. 

"8,500  years  ago  the  Jewish  legislator  promulgated  laws 
and  duties  almost  identical  with  those  we  are  now  engaged 
in  carrying  out  as  new  in  the  nineteenth  century — but  so 
it  is." 

".  .  .  There  is  a  great  deal  of  carelessness  touching  human 
life,  and  a  great  want  of  common  sense  or  serious  thought 
in  the  preserving  it.  Much  is  left  to  chance.  There  is 
either  fatalism  or  stolid  indifference  upon  the  matter  per- 
vading highest  society,  and  the  poor,  driven  as  they  are  from 


OF  LONDON  147 

richer  districts  into  poorer  neighbourhoods,  can  scarcely 
help  themselves ;  they  lose  at  last  all  healthy  communica- 
tion with  richer  or  better  neighbours,  and  all  taste  for  pure 
air  and  healthy  pursuits ;  they  pack  close,  they  descend  a 
little,  often  a  great  deal,  toward  the  lower  animals,  and  so 
live  neither  for  this  world  nor  the  next." 

"There  are  7,000  houses  in  this  parish.  890  of  these 
have  been  visited  this  year,  and  in  756  the  work  ordered  has 
been  carried  out — sometimes  in  a  most  slovenly  manner — 
an  apparent  compliance  with  your  orders.  In  the  poorer 
districts  the  most  incompetent  men  are  employed  to  plaster 
over,  patch  over,  whitewash,  or  cover  over  the  evils  ordered 
to  be  not  covered  hut  amended.  Still  a  great  amount  of 
good  work  has  been  done. 

"...  Overcrowding  is  the  normal  state  in  our  poorer 
districts.  Small  houses  of  four  rooms  are  usually  inhabited 
by  3  or  4  families,  and  by  8,  16,  or  24  persons,  e.g.,  133 
inhabitants  in  8  houses  ...  a  filthy  yard  generally  implies 
a  filthy  house  and  unclean  habits  "...**  this  parish  with 
its  thousands  of  refuse  heaps." 

"  I  know  that  we  are  on  the  right  track.  May  Pole 
Alley,  a  cul-de-sac  with  its  23  houses  and  180  people, 
was  once  a  nest  of  infectious  diseases.  I  attended  some 
10  cases  of  typhus  there,  some  of  them  malignant  enough 
to  destroy  life  in  48  hours.  With  great  trouble  this  court 
has  been  cleansed  and  amended.  It  is  very  much  more 
healthy." 

1858.     2nd  Quarter  : — 

"  June — an  exceedingly  hot  and  dry  month.  You  may 
judge  of  the  effect  of  such  temperature  upon  exposed 
dung-heaps,  wet  sloppy  yards,  and  rotten,  filthy,  uncovered 
water-butts  ;  three  characteristics  of  this  parish.  .  ,  . 

"  The  Surgeon  of  the  District  writes  thus  to  the  Board  of 
Guardians :  '  The  smell  is  very  bad  from  a  horse-boiling 
establishment  in  Green  Street,  which  causes  a  great  increase 
of  sickness  near  that  part.'  This  of  course  refers  to  the 
bone  boiling  and  other  like  establishments,  of  which  there 
are,  in  this  one  small  street,  three  cat  gut  manufacturers, 
one  soap  boiler,  one  horse  slaughterer,  and  four  bone  boilers 


148       THE   SANITARY  EVOLUTION 

— all  very  offensive  trades.  I  am  receiving  complaints  in 
all  directions  as  to  this  matter.  I  am  inclined  to  think  that 
this  is  not  altogether  just  to  the  20,000  inhabitants  who  live 
within  the  effluvia  circle  of  Green  Street." 

As  to  infantile  mortality  he  writes  :  "  I  confess  I  see  but 
little  difference  between  that  sanguinary  ancient  law  that 
directly  destroyed  weakly  and  deformed  children,  and  that 
modern  indifference  that  insures  at  the  very  least  an  equally 
fatal  result"  .  .  .  "these  disturbing  truths  involving  so 
much  trouble  and  expense,  and  giving  us  painful  reminders 
of  new  duties,  as  well  as  of  old  ones  neglected." 

He  complains  of  having  to  neglect  a  great  many  cases  of 
insanitation  owing  to  want  of  staff.  "  .  .  .  Of  those  upon 
whom  orders  come  to  remove  nuisances,  &c.,  a  large  number 
are  objectors,  and  not  a  few  positive  obstructors " 

"  The  items  in  this  last  table  merit  attention,  and  throw 
a  sad  sort  of  light  upon  the  condition  of  the  poor  of  this 
parish.  We  have  visited  73  unclean  and  ruinous  houses  ; 
118  in  which  the  water  was  stored  in  a  most  unwholesome 
manner ;  163  in  which  the  drains  were  defective  enough  to 
be  disease  producing;  72  in  which  the  w.c.'s  were  more  or 
less  unfit  for  use;  110  yards  sloppy,  not  paved,  or  ill-paved; 
and  138  in  which  there  was  no  sufficient  provision  for  house 
refuse.  .  .  . 

"  We  are  packing  more  and  more  closely. 

"  In  the  great  mass  of  our  poorer  habitations  the  allowance 
of  breathing  room  is  not  more  than  200  cubic  feet  per  head 
— often  as  low  as  120.  In  one  house  reported  to  me  there 
were  30  in  four  rooms  with  only  2,410  cubic  feet,  or 
80  cubic  feet  per  individual.  This  must,  of  course,  be  pre- 
mature death  to  many  of  them.  .  .  . 

"We  cannot  overlook  what  is  going  on  :  improvements  are 
being  effected  elsewhere,  the  dwellings  of  the  poor  are  being 
destroyed,  a  few  parishes  are  fast  becoming  pre-eminently 
poor,  over-crowded,  and  filthy.  I  need  not  tell  you  that  this 
parish  is  one  that  gets  in  this  respect  steadily  worse  from 
the  improvement  in  others. 

"  The  temptation  is  very  great  to  overcrowd;  the  poor 
family,  however  large,  by  crowding  into  one  room,  and  by 


OF  LONDON  149 

even  taking  a  casual  lodger  in  addition,  obtains  a  sort  of 
home  at  a  cheaper  rate,  and  the  owner  gets  a  much  larger 
revenue  out  of  what  I  must,  I  suppose,  call  human  habita- 
tions. The  resulting  illness  and  death  are  considered  inevit- 
able, or  are  viewed  with  a  stolid  indifference." 

1858.     Srd  Quarter  :— 

Of  the  greatness  of  the  mass  of  prevalent  evils  he 
wrote :  "I  have  often  reported  it  here,  but  the  very 
enormity  of  the  evil  blunts  our  appreciation  of  it.  .  .  ." 

There  had  been  a  high  mortality  in  the  Quarter.  "  We 
are  once  more,  I  believe,  the  worst  parish  in  London.  .  .  ." 

"  The  back  districts  of  this  parish  require  relief,  as  much 
as  Ireland  ever  did,  from  a  class  of  middlemen  who,  with 
some  few  most  honourable  exceptions,  grind  out  all  they  can 
from  the  most  squalid  districts,  and  carry  nothing  back  in 
the  way  of  cleanliness  or  improvement." 

He  gives  a  long  list  of  streets  and  courts  and  places  where 
disease  was  rampant  and  deadly  owing  to  the  insanitary 
conditions. 

"It  may  perhaps  be  said  that  all  this  is  in  the  order  of 
nature,  and  cannot  be  prevented.  My  experience  of  a 
quarter  of  a  century  among  these  diseases  points  quite  the 
other  way.  Providence  does  not  intend  that  reservoirs  of 
stinking  putrid  matter  shall  stand  so  close  to  the  poor  man's 
door  as  to  infest  him  at  bed  and  board.  ...  In  the  Jewish 
scriptures  the  places  for  the  purposes  here  mentioned  are 
ordered  to  be  without  the  camp,  as  far  from  the  breathing 
and  eating  places  as  possible ;  and  among  us,  as  you  see, 
when  we  tolerate  such  abominations.  He  visits  us  with 
death.  It  is  the  result  of  the  irrevocable  laws  of  nature 
often  averted  by  what  appear  as  happy  accidents,  but  at 
last,  when  disregarded,  deadly.  Gentlemen,  you  are  the 
trustees  for  life  and  death  to  a  population  of  well-nigh 
30,000  people,  who  from  the  force  of  circumstances  are  more 
or  less  unable  to  help  themselves.  ..." 

"  Of  course  it  cannot  be  expected  that  we  can  provide  the 
homes  of  the  poor  with  the  orderly  arrangements  and  benefits 
of  these  Institutions  (Dispensaries,  &c.) — that,  however, 
will  form  no  excuse  here  or  hereafter  for  not  carrying  out 


150       THE   SANITARY  EVOLUTION 

the  improvements  we  can  easily  achieve,  and  which  a  wise 
legislature  has  given  us  full  authority  to  do." 

"  Total  deaths  in  Quarter  ended  October  2nd,  1858—369, 
of  which  225  were  of  children  under  5  years =61  per 
cent ! !  " 

The  whole  tone  of  this  report  was  such  that  he  could  not 
possibly  continue  as  Medical  Officer  of  Health  to  a  then 
existing  Vestry,  and  he  resigned. 

He  was  succeeded  by  another  very  able  man.  Dr.  Henry 
Bateson,  from  whose  reports  may  be  continued  the  descrip- 
tion of  this  parish  up  to  the  census  of  1861. 

"  The  onward  moral  and  intellectual  progress  of  the 
human  race  depends  far  more  upon  the  sanitary  state  which 
surrounds  it  than  has  ever  yet  entered  into  our  imaginations 
to  conceive.  .  .  . 

"  We  have  suffered  severely  from  the  ravages  of  smallpox. 
Smallpox  is  a  disease  over  which  we  have  perfect  control, 
and  which,  were  vaccination  thoroughly  carried  out,  might 
be  banished  from  these  dominions." 

"...  Men  whose  nervous  systems  become  depressed 
and  the  tone  of  their  system  generally  lowered,  become  the 
subjects  of  a  continued  craving  for  stimulants." 

"...  Our  wells  are  but  the  receptacles  of  the  washings 
from  our  streets,  the  off-scourings  from  our  manufactories, 
the  permeations  from  our  cesspools,  and  the  filterings  from 
our  graveyards," 

1860-1861.     After  five  years'  local  government : — 

"  The  circumstances  are  various  and  complicated,  which 
contribute  to  prevent  the  improvement  of  the  district,  and 
even  make  the  endeavour  seem  at  times  hopeless.  No  one 
can  know  the  fertile  sources  that  exist  for  producing  in 
the  mind  this  feeling  of  despair  save  those  engaged  in  sani- 
tary labours ;  or  those  perchance  whose  duty  it  may  be  to 
visit  our  poorest  and  lowest  localities."  .  .  .  "It  is  no  light 
and  easy  work  to  remove  the  aggregate  evils  of  centuries 
which,  like  the  coral  reefs  of  the  ocean,  have  grown  up 
silently  and  continuously  to  their  present  magnitude.  .  .  . 
There  are  hindrances  all  around,  some  of  which  are  unsur- 
mountable,  such  as  those  arising  from  the  imperfections  of 


OF   LONDON  151 

the  law  itself  .  .  .  there  are  also  vested  rights,  customs, 
ignorance,  stupidity,  and  avarice,  all  of  which  have  to  be 
dealt  with  and  overcome  if  possible." 

"Nature  never  pardons.  Obey  and  it  is  well;  disobey 
and  reap  the  bitter  consequences." 

Referring  to  some  houses  "  of  the  worst  description, 
having  no  yards,  nor  even  windows  behind,  so  that  ventila- 
tion was  impossible,"  he  says  :  "  I  am  sorry  to  say  that  there 
are  numbers  of  similar  houses  still  standing,  and  occupied 
by  the  most  ignorant  and  degraded  of  our  population — a  class 
living  almost  in  the  neglect  of  laws  human  and  divine  ;  and 
as  heedless  about  the  present  and  the  future  as  the  very 
heathen  themselves.  ..." 

"  The  state  and  condition  of  the  dweUings  of  the  poorer 
classes  are  a  stain  upon  our  civilisation." 

"...  No  one  can  conceive,  nor  would  they  believe, 
unless  eye-witnesses,  the  wretched  circumstances  in  which 
vast  numbers  of  families  have  to  spend  their  lives.  It  is 
indescribable.". 

"  The  daily  task  of  keeping  clean  their  houses  and  families, 
once  a  pleasure  to  them  as  well  as  a  duty,  having  to  be 
performed  amid  overwhelming  obstacles  on  every  side, 
from  which  no  hope  of  escape  remains  to  cheer  them 
on,  is  gradually  neglected  and  ultimately  abandoned,  their 
spirits  become  torpid  and  depressed,  and  this  is  necessarily 
followed  by  the  derangement  of  the  functions  of  the  body. 
Finally  they  become  reckless,  and  this  recklessness  increases 
the  evil  which  gave  it  birth.  There  is  action  and  reaction. 
What  marvel  then  that,  like  unto  those  about  them,  they 
float  down  the  ebb  tide  towards  the  dead  sea  of  physical  dirt 
and  moral  degradation.  It  has  been  truly  said  by  Dr. 
Southwood  Smith,  '  The  wretchedness  being  greater  than 
humanity  can  bear,  annihilates  the  mental  feelings,  the 
faculty  distinctive  of  the  human  being.' " 

"  The  heedlessness  shown  in  the  building  of  houses  is 
astonishing.  No  care  is  taken  about  the  nature  of  the  sub- 
soil, the  position,  the  ventilation,  and  means  of  cleanliness. 
They  are  run  up  anywhere  and  almost  anyhow,  and  too 
often   become   the    prolific   source   of    disease."     And    he 


152       THE   SANITARY  EVOLUTION 

quotes  :  "  No  man  has  a  right  to  erect  a  nuisance,  and 
the  public  has  clearly  as  good  a  right,  as  great  an  interest 
in  enforcing  cleanliness  to  prevent  the  outbreak  of  an 
epidemic  as  in  requiring  walls  to  prevent  the  spread  of 
fire.  Yet,  v^^here  one  is  destroyed  by  fire,  how  many 
thousands  are  there  destroyed  by  disease,  the  indirect  result 
of  such  erections  ?  " 

"  We  are  desperately  careless  about  our  health,  and 
apparently  esteem  it  of  small  value.  A  great  modern 
writer  has  truly  said :  '  The  first  wealth  is  health.  No 
labour,  pains,  temperance,  poverty,  nor  exercise  that  can 
gain  it  must  be  grudged.  For  sickness  is  a  cannibal  which 
eats  up  all  the  life  and  youth  it  can  lay  hold  of,  and  absorbs 
its  own  sons  and  daughters.' " 

The  descriptions  here  given  enable  us  to  realise  how 
terrible  and  pitiable  a  state  of  things  had  been  reached, 
and  the  depths  of  filth,  and  misery,  and  abomination  into 
which  the  people  had  been  allowed  to  sink  through  the 
indifference  of  Parliament,  the  absence  of  any  local 
government,  and  the  neglect  or  avarice  of  the  "owners." 

One  hope  there  now  was.  Parliament  had  at  last 
made  laws  to  remedy  these  evils,  and  local  governing 
authorities  had  been  created  to  administer  and  enforce  the 
laws. 

In  1858  a  Public  Health  Act  was  passed  by  Parliament, 
which  put  an  end  to  the  existence  of  the  Board  of  Health, 
and  transferred  to  the  Privy  Council  the  administration  of 
the  Diseases  Prevention  Act.  And  the  Privy  Council  was 
authorised  to  cause  inquiry  to  be  made  in  relation  to 
matters  concerning  the  public  health.  In  1861  a  medical 
department  of  the  Privy  Council  was  formed  which  has  in 
many  ways  been  of  immense  service  to  the  cause  of  public 
health,  and  which,  as  time  went  on,  developed  towards 
a  true  Ministry  of  Public  Health. 

All  things  considered,  by  the  end  of  the  first  five  years 
of  the  working  of  the  new  local  constitution  conferred  upon 
the  metropolis,  a  real  beginning  had  been  made  in  the 
sanitary  evolution  of  the  great  city.  Some  of  the  grossest 
evils  had  been  attacked,  and  a  start  made  in  lifting  London 


OF  LONDON  153 

out  of  the  depths  of  the  appalling  slough  of  abominable  filth 
in  which  it  had  become  submerged. 

In  some  of  the  vitally  important  matters  progress  was 
material.  The  improvement  in  the  water  supply  was 
considerable,  the  main  drainage  works  had  been  started ; 
the  construction  of  many  new  sewers,  the  abolition  of  great 
numbers  of  cesspools,  and  the  better  drainage  of  houses, 
were  all  events  of  a  decidedly  satisfactory  character. 

And  the  death-rate  of  London  as  a  whole  showed  a  slight 
decrease— from  23-38  per  1,000  in  1851  to  2318  in  1861. 
In  some  districts  there  was  an  increase — in  the  majority, 
however,  there  was  a  decrease. 

But  most  encouraging  of  all  was  the  direct  evidence 
afforded  by  experience  as  to  the  effects  of  sanitary  im- 
provements. 

Thus,  in  Whitechapel,  the  Medical  Officer  of  Health,  in 
reporting  that  the  cases  of  fever  had  diminished  from  1,929 
in  1856  to  190  in  1860,  said  :— 

"  This  diminution  may  be  fairly  attributed  to  the 
additions  made  to  the  sewerage  of  the  district,  the  improve- 
ments effected  in  the  drainage  of  2,172  houses,  the  abolition 
of  3,002  cesspools,  the  better  paving  of  many  of  the  courts, 
the  systematic  inspection,  &c.,  of  houses  where  fever 
occurred,  the  removal  of  37,607  nuisances,  and  to  the 
abolition  of  several  offensive  trade  nuisances." 

And  the  Medical  Officer  of  Health  for  Shoreditch  wrote, 
in  1861  :— 

"  That  the  diminished  mortality  and  the  lesser  frequency 
of  epidemic  diseases  are  really  due  in  great  measure  to 
sanitary  works  and  inspection  is  proved  by  the  diminution 
and  even  disappearance  of  certain  forms  of  sickness  from 
streets,  courts,  and  districts  where  sewers  have  been 
constructed,  ventilation  provided,  and  other  improvements 
effected  ;  whilst,  on  the  other  hand,  the  districts  still 
requiring  those  necessary  reforms  furnish  far  more  than 
their  proportion  of  the  epidemic  sickness  and  mortality." 

Philanthropic  individuals  were  increasing  their  efforts  for 
the  improvement  of  the  people ;  and  societies,  working  on  a 
self-supporting  basis,  were  taking  more  active  interest  in 


154   SANITARY  EVOLUTION  OF  LONDON 

the  housing  problem,  and  erecting  model  lodging-houses 
and  more  healthy  habitations.* 

Public  opinion  was  more  interested  than  before  in 
sanitary  matters,  and  it  was  thought  that  the  working 
classes  had  also  in  some  degree  awakened  to  the  care  of 
their  own  health. 

"Altogether,"  wrote  the  Eegistrar  General,  in  his  report 
on  the  health  of  London  after  the  census  figures  of  1861 
were  known,  "  there  is  abundant  proof  of  that  increased 
regard  for  human  life  that  attends  civilisation." 

*  "The  moral  and  social  benefits  conferred  by  these  buildings  has  been 
immeasurable,"  wrote  one  Medical  Officer  of  Health  (St.  Pancras). 

"  They  are  institutions  whose  larger  acceptance  would  save  the  lives 
of  hundreds,  and  reclaim  the  morals  of  thousands,"  wrote  another. 


CHAPTEE  III 

1861-1870 

The  Census  of  1861  disposed  of  the  various  estimates  of  the 
population  of  London,  and  of  the  death-rates  in  its  various 
parishes,  and  gave  authoritatively  the  actual  figures. 

From  2,363,341  persons  in  1851,  the  population  had  gone 
up  to  2,808,494  in  1861 — an  increase  not  very  far  short  of 
half  a  million;  and  the  number  of  inhabited  houses  had 
increased  from  306,064  to  360,065. 

The  natural  growth  of  the  population,  or  in  other  words, 
the  excess  of  births  over  deaths,  accounted  for  but  part 
of  this  increase.  The  rest  was  due  to  the  great  stream 
of  immigrants  into  London,  which,  notable  previously, 
"continued  to  flow  thither  with  unabated  force." 

The  increase  was  not  equally  distributed.  The  popula- 
tion of  the  central  parts  showed  a  decline.  There  the  great 
economic  forces  were  most  powerful,  and  under  their 
influence  the  population  of  the  "City"  had  decreased  by 
more  than  15,000 :  that  of  Holborn  and  St.  Martin-in-the- 
Fields  by  nearly  2,000  each:  that  of  St.  James',  West- 
minster, by  about  1,000,  and  two  or  three  others  slightly. 

But  elsewhere — east,  north,  west,  south — the  increases 
had  been  great,  and  in  some  instances  remarkable.  Poplar 
had  increased  in  the  decade  by  32,000 ;  Islington  by  60,000  ; 
St.  Pancras  by  32,000 ;  Paddington  by  29,000.  And  on  the 
south  side  of  the  river,  Wandsworth  had  increased  by 
20,000 ;  Newington  and  Camberwell  by  17,000  each ;  and 
Lambeth  by  23,000. 

The  rate  of  growth  in  the  various  wards  or  parts  of  the 
parishes  showed,  both  as  regarded  persons  and  houses,  great 

165 


156       THE   SANITARY  EVOLUTION 

differences,  the  most  rapid  increases  being  in  the  parts 
nearest  to  the  centre  of  London. 

A  most  material  factor  in  the  sanitary  evolution  of  any 
great  city,  and  especially  so  of  London,  is  the  introduction 
into  its  population  of  fresh  elements  from  the  outside. 

The  returns  collected  by  successive  Census  Commissioners 
gave  considerable  information  upon  this  point. 

"London  is  the  metropolis  of  the  Empire,"  wrote  the 
Commissioners  of  1861,  "  and  thither  the  representatives  of 
other  nations,  of  the  Colonies,  and  of  Scotland  and  Ireland 
resort ;  but  it  is  chiefly  the  field  in  which  the  populations  of 
the  several  counties  of  England  find  scope  for  their  talents 
and  their  industry." 

The  majority  of  the  inhabitants  of  London  in  1861  were 
indigenous,  for  1,701,177  were  born  within  its  limits ; 
1,062,812  were  born  elsewhere. 

Of  these  1,062,812,  close  on  36,000  were  born  in  Scotland, 
107,000  in  Ireland,  19,000  in  the  Colonies,  and  48,000 
were  foreigners.  The  remainder  —  amounting  to  about 
893,000 — were  born  in  the  extra-metropolitan  counties  of 
England  and  Wales. 

"Proximity  to  the  metropolis,  and  the  absence  of  manu- 
factures at  home,  first  drew  the  natives  of  these  counties  to 
London.  The  stream  of  immigrants  from  the  south-western 
counties  was  large :  Cornwall,  Devon,  Dorset,  Somerset, 
and  Wiltshire  having  sent  128,422  of  their  natives  to  be 
enumerated  in  London." 

Likewise  the  stream  from  Norfolk  and  Suffolk  was  large. 
But  the  great  bulk  of  the  immigrants  came  from  the 
counties  immediately  around  London. 

To  put  the  figures  in  simple  form  —  of  every  1,000 
inhabitants  of  London,  606  were  born  in  London,  the 
remaining  894  were  born  elsewhere. 

And  the  census  provided  also  the  means  for  ascertaining 
as  correct  a  death-rate  as  could  be  arrived  at.  In  1851  the 
death-rate  was  23-38  per  1,000 ;  in  1861  it  was  23-18— not 
much  of  a  decrease,  but  satisfactory  in  showing  that  some 
of  the  evil  powers  of  insanitation  were  stayed. 

It  is,  however,  always  to  be  borne  in  mind  that  either 


OF  LONDON  167 

the  death-rate,  or  the  number  of  deaths,  gives  but  an 
imperfect  and  incomplete  picture  of  the  sanitary  condition 
of  a  population.  It  tells  but  the  tale  of  those  who  have 
died  of  disease — it  leaves  uncounted  and  untold  the  far 
greater  number  of  those  who  have  been  either  temporarily 
disabled  or  maimed  for  life  by  disease.  Estimates  vary 
considerably  as  to  the  number  of  persons  who  suffer  from 
disease  and  recover;  and  the  proportion  of  recoveries  to 
deaths  varies  in  different  diseases,  some  diseases  being  so 
much  more  deadly  than  others.  But  the  sick-rate  is  always, 
and  under  all  circumstances,  very  much  greater  than  the 
death-rate. 

The  mere  taking  of  a  census  could  have  no  visible  or 
actual  effect;  the  routine  of  life  and  the  action  of  the 
various  economic  and  social  forces  continued  unchanged ; 
but  the  information  gained  was  of  the  utmost  value. 

The  figures  and  the  facts  recorded  afforded  startling 
demonstration  of  the  immensity  of  London,  and  of  the 
growing  gravity  and  complexity  of  the  great  problems 
of  London  life. 

London  was  huge  before — appalling  almost  in  size  and 
population ;  now  it  was  shown  to  be  huger  than  ever. 
Everything  was  on  a  more  enormous  scale.  The  masses 
of  population  were  far  larger,  and  were  rapidly  increasing ; 
and  with  this  increase  everything  concerning  their  existence 
became  more  and  more  complicated,  and  every  reform  more 
and  more  difficult.  The  removal  of  evils  affecting  their 
physical  and  social  being  would  be  a  heavier  task,  the 
supervision  of  their  conditions  of  life  more  onerous  and 
exacting,  and  the  provision  of  a  government  to  secure  their 
well-being  a  graver  problem  than  ever. 

One  of  the  great  forces  unceasingly  at  work,  and  one 
of  the  great  contributory  causes  to  insanitation  and  to  the 
maintenance  of  a  high  death-rate  was,  undoubtedly,  drink. 
It  led  to  poverty  and  overcrowding,  it  led  to  ill-health  and 
greater  susceptibility  to  disease ;  and  the  evils  acted  and 
reacted  upon  each  other  indefinitely — a  vicious  circle  from 
which  there  was  no  escape,  overcrowding  leading  to  a 
craving  for  drink,  and  drink  resulting  in  poverty  and  there- 


158       THE   SANITARY  EVOLUTION 

fore  overcrowding  with  its  attendant  evils  and  high 
mortality.  Since  the  unfortunate  moment  in  1830  when 
Parliament  deemed  it  expedient  "  for  the  better  supplying 
the  public  with  beer  "  to  give  greater  facilities  for  the  sale 
thereof,  and  scattered  broadcast  throughout  the  nation  the 
seed  of  unlimited  evil,  facilities  for  drink  not  only  of  beer 
but  of  spirits  have  been  practically  unlimited.  Against  this 
source  of  evil,  which  is  often  mentioned  in  their  reports, 
neither  Medical  Officers  of  Health  nor  Vestries  could  con- 
tend, and  had  no  power  to  contend.  But  all  through 
the  history  of  the  sanitary  evolution  of  London  this  deep 
underlying  curse  was  present,  acting  as  a  perpetual  clog 
upon  sanitary  and  social  progress — a  horrible,  all-pervading 
and  tremendous  power  for  evil. 

In  the  earlier  years  of  this  new  decade  of  1861-70  the 
central  government — the  Metropolitan  Board  of  Works — 
was  demonstrating  the  great  utility  of  a  central  governing 
authority  for  London,  and  a  task  was  nearing  accomplish- 
ment which  was  absolutely  the  first  essential,  the  very 
foundation  of  an  improved  state  of  the  public  health. 

It  was  engaged  in  pressing  vigorously  forward  the  great 
system  for  the  sewerage  and  drainage  of  London  designed 
for  taking  off  the  sewage  and  refuse  waters  of  a  prospective 
population  of  three  and  a  half  million  persons,  and  the 
rainfall  of  a  drainage  area  of  117  square  miles.  Until 
those  works  were  completed  no  great  degree  of  sanitary 
improvement  could  be  expected. 

In  1861  the  Board  reported  that  a  portion  thereof  had 
been  finished,  and  as  the  work  gradually  progressed  the 
Vestries  were  able  to  avail  themselves  of  the  deeper  outfalls 
afforded,  and  to  undertake  drainage  works  in  their  several 
areas. 

By  1865  the  great  task  was  virtually  accomplished. 
Eighty-two  miles  of  main  intercepting  sewers  had  been 
constructed,  and  the  sewage  was  being  conveyed  away 
by  them  several  miles  distant  from  London. 

Their  completion  enabled  the  Metropolitan  Board  to  fill 
in  the  open  sewers,  which  had  so  long  polluted  the  atmo- 
sphere,  and  been   such  a  fertile  source  of  disease   in  the 


OF  LONDON  159 

districts  where  they  existed,  and  took  away  from  the 
Vestries  any  excuse  for  delay  in  carrying  out  the  con- 
struction and  putting  in  order  of  the  local  sewers  for 
which  they  were  responsible. 

The  central  authority  had  thus  brought  into  existence 
a  gigantic  system  of  sewerage  by  which  the  river  near 
London  ceased  to  be  the  main  sewer  of  London,  and  the 
whole  of  the  metropolis  was  relieved  of  many  of  the  most 
powerful  causes  of  fever,  cholera,  and  other  destructive 
diseases.  It  was  a  great  work,  admirably  and  expeditiously 
carried  out,  and  it  cleared  the  way  for  other  sanitary 
reforms  which  were  impossible  without  an  effective  general 
system  of-  sewerage,  yet  which  were  essential  if  a  satis- 
factory condition  of  the  public  health  were  ever  to  be 
attained. 

The  central  body  also  proved  its  great  utility  by  securing 
uniformity  in  the  sewerage  and  drainage  works  which  fell 
to  the  duty  of  the  local  authorities  to  carry  out.  All  plans 
by  the  Vestries  had  to  be  submitted  to  the  Board  so  that 
the  Board  might  see  that  they  were  consistent  with  the 
main  system. 

Both  main  drainage  and  house  drainage  were  thus  steadily 
being  extended  and  improved,  but  in  many  places  things 
were  still  outrageously  bad.  Nor  had  the  creation  of  fresh 
evils  been  effectually  prevented,  for  from  Bromley  came 
the  complaint  that  several  new  estates  were  rapidly  being 
covered  with  small  house  property  which  drained  into 
cesspools. 

And  the  Medical  Officer  of  Health  for  Fulham  wrote 
(1866)  :— 

"  The  active  operations  of  your  Board  have  fortunately 
relieved  the  Fulham  district  to  a  large  extent  from  that 
pregnant  source  of  mischief — want  of  drainage ;  still  there 
are  large  tracts  of  building  land  yet  unprovided  for,  on 
much  of  which  houses  by  dozens  are  being  squatted  without 
any  regard  to  this  great  essential  by  the  builders,  save  the 
horrid  cesspool  system.  It  is  enough  to  have  to  counteract 
the  evils  of  past  imprudence  without  perpetuating  them  by 
such  wilful  recklessness.  ..." 


160       THE   SANITARY  EVOLUTION 

The  supply  of  water  to  the  inhabitants  of  London  was  of 
equal  importance  to  an  efficient  system  of  sewerage.  The 
problem  had  by  no  means  been  solved  by  "  The  Metropolis 
Water  Act  "  of  1852,  which  had  enacted  that  within  five 
years  after  the  passing  of  the  Act  a  constant  supply  should 
be  given  by  the  companies.  Unfortunately,  the  supply  was 
in  the  hands  of  various  public  companies  over  which  the 
local  governing  authorities  had  practically  little  or  no 
control,  and,  like  all  sanitary  legislation  of  this  period, 
the  results  were  not  commensurate  with  the  intentions 
of  the  Legislature. 

An  illustration  of  how  insufficient  the  supply  was,  was 
detailed  in  a  report  of  the  Medical  Officer  of  Health  for 
Whitechapel  in  1862  :— 

*'  A  return  has  been  made  by  the  Inspector  of  133  courts 
in  the  district. 

"  Of  these — in  48  which  contain  388  houses  and  have 
a  population  of  3,233  persons  the  water  supply  is  by  stand 
taps  only,  from  which  the  water  flows  daily  (Sundays 
excepted)  for  a  period  varying  from  quarter  to  half  an 
hour. 

"  This  intermittent  supply  is  totally  inadequate  to  the 
wants  of  the  people." 

Parliament  made  an  effort  in  1862*  to  amend  the  law, 
and  enacted  that  where  a  house  was  without  a  proper 
supply  of  water  the  owner  or  occupier  might  be  required 
by  the  Vestry  to  obtain  such  supply,  and  if  such  notice  was 
not  complied  with,  the  Vestry  might  do  the  necessary  work 
and  recover  the  expenses  from  the  owner,  and  then  require 
the  water  companies  to  supply  the  water. 

But  the  Act  was  of  little  practical  value,  and  was  made  of 
less  value  by  the  inaction  of  the  local  authorities. 

A  few  extracts  from  reports  of  Medical  Officers  of  Health 
show  how  thoroughly  unsatisfactory  and  disastrous  to 
the  health  of  the  people  the  existing  condition  of  affairs 
was. 

The  Medical  Officer  of  Health  for  Fulham  wrote  in 
1864  :— 

*  25  and  26  Vic.  cap.  102. 


OF   LONDON  161 

"  The  powers  at  present  given  by  Statutes  for  enforcing 
a  supply  of  water  for  domestic  use  are,  within  the  Fulham 
district,  all  but  inoperative.  The  cry  amongst  the  cottagers 
is  still  for  water — water  without  which  all  other  sanitary 
appliances  are  at  best  abortive,  without  which  in  ample  and 
continuous  flow  no  community  can  be  preserved  in  health- 
fulness.  On  this  essential  will  depend  the  perfect  working 
of  our  deep  and  costly  sewers,  on  this  alone  will  hang 
success  in  minor  drainage  matters.  Water,  that  first  and 
most  important  element  of  health  and  cleanliness,  exists 
in  name  alone  in  masses  of  our  cottage  property  here,  and 
consequently  neither  purity  of  person  nor  of  dwelling  can 
be  ensured." 

The  Medical  Officer  of  Health  for  St.  Martin-in-the-Fields 
wrote  in  1864  deploring  that  the  new  laws  of  the  water 
companies  did  not  provide  for  water  being  supplied  on 
Sunday.  "It  is  to  be  lamented  that  people  should  at 
any  time  have  to  go  about  begging  water,  and  more 
especially  so  on  Sundays,  the  very  day  they  most  require 
it." 

And  the  Medical  Officer  of  Health  for  Westminster  wrote 
(1864)  :— 

"  The  water  supply  to  many  of  the  courts  and  alleys  is 
very  unsatisfactory.     No  Sunday  supply. 

"  It  does  seem  a  monstrous  arrangement  that  for  52 
days  in  the  year  the  public  should  be  deprived  of  that 
which  they  pay  for,  but  have  no  means  of  substituting  by 
anything  else." 

And  to  complete  the  hardships  which  the  people  suffered 
under  in  the  matter  of  water  supply,  if  the  house-owner  did 
not  pay  the  water  rates  when  called  upon  to  do  so,  the 
water  company  might  cut  off  the  supply  of  the  people  in 
the  house.  This  was  frequently  done,  and  the  Medical 
Officer  of  Health  for  Whitechapel  recorded  how  for  four 
months — 

"  The  inhabitants  of  Tuson's  Court,  Spitalfields,  had  been 
entirely  deprived  of  water  in  consequence  of  the  water 
company  refusing  to  continue  any  longer  the  supply,  as 
the  landlord  had  not  paid  the  water  rate." 

12 


162      THE   SANITARY  EVOLUTION 

The  quality  of  the  water,  though  improved  by  the  change 
of  intakes  to  the  part  of  the  Thames  above  Teddington 
Lock,  left  very  much  to  be  desired.  It  was  no  longer 
contaminated  by  the  entire  sewage  of  the  metropolis, 
but  it  was  still  by  sewage  poured  into  the  river  and 
its  tributaries  by  towns  higher  up — Oxford,  Reading, 
Windsor,  Chertsey,  Hampton,  and  others — and  received, 
unchecked,  the  whole  of  the  pollution,  solid  and  fluid,  of 
the  district  constituting  the  watershed.  And  this  same 
water,  after  it  had  been  so  polluted,  was  abstracted  from 
the  river,  sand-filtered,  and  pumped  into  the  metropolis 
for  domestic  uses  and  distributed  to  the  consumers.* 

The  housing  of  the  people  was  the  problem  which,  above 
all  others,  was  more  and  more  forcing  itself  upon  the  atten- 
tion of  those  whose  work  brought  them  into  actual  contact 
with  the  conditions  of  life  of  the  great  mass  of  the  people 
who  were  in  their  charge ;  not  merely  the  construction  of 
the  houses  or  their  situation,  but  the  accommodation 
afforded  and  the  conditions  of  life  therein. 

"Our  forefathers,"  wrote  one  of  the  Medical  Officers  of 
Health,  **  knew  nothing  about  the  public  health,  and  cared 
less.  They  added  house  to  house,  and  street  to  street, 
according  to  their  own  will  and  apparent  benefit,  and  so 
have  left  us  this  mingled  heritage." 

And  there  were  streets  and  courts  and  alleys  which  were 
not  fit  for  human  habitation,  and  which  could  never  be 
made  so ;  and  thousands  upon  thousands  of  houses  where 
"  nothing  short  of  a  hurricane  would  suffice  to  displace  and 
renew  the  air." 

London  had  enough  to  suffer  under  from  the  state  of  the 
existing  houses,  and  an  appalling  task  before  her  to  remedy 
them,  but  not  alone  was  this  enormous  evil  practically 
unattacked,  but  fresh  sources  of  evil  were  allowed  to  be 
created,  and  new  houses  were  being  erected  which  would 
carry  into  the  future  the  evils  which  efforts  were  now  being 
made  to  put  an  end  to. 

"  A  house  may  be  built  anywhere,"  wrote  one  of  the 
Medical  Officers  of  Health  in  1862,  "  and  almost  anyhow, 
*  See  P.P.  1866,  vol.  xvii.    Eeport  of  Eoyal  Commission. 


OF  LONDON  163 

provided  all  the  rooms  can  be  lighted  and  ventilated  from 
a  street  or  alley  adjoining.  The  object  of  the  builder  is  to 
save  as  much  ground,  materials,  and  expense  as  possible. 
The  result  is  not  difficult  to  foresee.  ..." 

No  regard,  moreover,  was  had  to  the  ground  on  which 
new  houses  were  being  built,  though  that  was  all-important 
for  a  healthy  dwelling. 

"...  Some  of  the  new  houses  are  built  upon  garden 
mould  or  old  '  slop  shoots,' "  wrote  the  Medical  Officer  of 
Health  for  Paddington  in  1870-1 ;  "  these  thin  and  flimsy 
shells  of  lath  and  plaster  truly  merit  the  term  '  slop 
buildings.'  A  dangerous  moisture  and  miasma  arises 
from  houses  built  upon  such  an  unhealthy  foundation." 

How  disastrous  the  results  were  to  the  inhabitants  is 
pointed  out  by  several  Medical  Officers  of  Health. 

The  Medical  Officer  of  Health  for  Mile-End-Old-Town 
wrote  (1866)  :— 

"...  Many,  open  places  now  built  upon,  or  being  built 
upon,  have  been  for  years  the  receptacles  for  all  kinds  of 
animal  and  vegetable  refuse,  and  have  become  thoroughly 
impregnated  with  the  products  of  their  decomposition.  .  .  . 
The  result  to  the  health  of  the  occupants  is  daily  realised 
by  the  excessive  number  of  zymotic  diseases  and  deaths 
which  occur  in  them." 

The  Medical  Officer  of  Health  for  Limehouse  wrote : — 

"Ask  about  the  general  health  and  the  houses.  'Never 
been  well  since  coming  in,  and  the  children  always  ailing; 
and  my  husband  says  he  feels  more  refreshed  when  he 
comes  from  his  work  than  after  he  gets  up  in  the  morning. 
And  then  everything  spoils ;  meat  put  into  a  cupboard  is 
musty  in  a  night.     One  can  keep  nothing.' 

"  These  are  all  new  houses." 

And  a  few  years  later,  referring  to  this  same  subject,  he 
wrote : — 

"  A  half  mile  off,  a  few  years  ago,  there  were  some  acres 
of  gravel  pits.  The  gravel  had  gone  for  road-making,  &c. 
The  large  pit  was  then  filled  up  on  invitation  of  the  owner, 
with  the  aid  of  the  scavenger  and  others,  with  all  the  slush 
and  filth  of  a  large  circle  of  contributors.     When  this  fund 


164      THE   SANITARY  EVOLUTION 

of  abominations  became  consolidated,  it  was  built  over  in 
the  usual  style.  They  were  soon  occupied  by  tenants  and 
lodgers.  Now  this  site  during  the  epidemic  (of  cholera) 
has  been  a  great  slaughter  field — the  mortality  was 
shocking." 

And  he  added,  "  there  are  thousands  of  such  houses  built 
about  London." 

The  Building  Act  of  1855  was  very  far  from  being  an 
effective  prevention  of  such  devices  as  these.  It  required  a 
notice  to  be  given  to  the  Vestry  before  any  new  building  was 
commenced,  and  a  plan  to  be  submitted  for  approval  show- 
ing the  proposed  drainage  and  the  levels  of  the  building ; 
but  this  requirement  appears  to  have  been  by  no  means 
universally  complied  with,  and  some  local  authorities  had 
great  difficulty  in  getting  notices  of  new  buildings  com- 
menced within  the  district.  And  its  restrictions  were  not 
sufficient  to  prevent  the  speculative  builder  in  places  from 
raising  his  block  of  houses  in  the  fields  with  neither  road  or 
sewer  for  their  accommodation,  and  with  the  frequent  result 
of  fever-stricken  tenants. 

With  the  increasing  knowledge  of  their  districts  gained 
by  the  numerous  Medical  Officers  of  Health  distributed 
over  the  whole  metropolis,  the  widespread  prevalence  of 
overcrowding  in  London,  and  the  virulent  evils,  physical, 
social,  and  moral,  consequent  thereon,  come  into  greater 
prominence  and  more  vivid  light  than  ever  before. 

Throughout  the  central  parts  of  London  the  process  of 
demolition  of  houses  of  all  sorts  and  sizes,  inhabited  by  the 
well-to-do  or  by  the  poorest,  was  continuing.  The  street 
improvements  which  were  being  carried  out  in  some  places 
entailed  extensive  demolitions ;  whilst  the  construction  of 
railways  and  the  erection  of  large  stations  necessitated  the 
destruction  of  hundreds  of  others,  mostly  those  inhabited 
by  poorer  persons.  Thus,  in  the  improvements  in  the 
Holborn  Valley,  348  houses,  accommodating  1,044  families 
and  4,176  persons,  were  taken  down  and  not  replaced.  And 
in  St.  Pancras,  and  many  other  districts,  the  dwellings  of 
the  poor  were  constantly  being  removed  by  railway  expan- 
sion. 


OP  LONDON  165 

The  subject  of  the  displacement  of  labourers  in  conse- 
quence of  great  public  works  in  the  metropolis  was  brought 
before  the  House  of  Lords  in  1861  by  Lord  Derby.* 

"It  affects,"  he  said,  "in  the  most  vital  manner  the 
interests  of  a  large  portion  of  the  population  who  are  utterly 
unable  to  protect  themselves  against  legislation,  however 
unfavourably  it  may  bear  upon  them. 

"  In  the  metropolis  and  its  suburbs  sixty  to  seventy  miles 
of  new  line  (railway)  are  proposed — a  great  portion  of  these 
passing  through  the  most  crowded  streets." 

He  described  specially  the  parish  of  St.  Bartholomew's, 
in  Cripplegate,  with  a  population  of  about  5,000  inhabiting 
500  houses. 

"  Throughout  it,  there  are  not  ten  families  who  occupy  a 
house  to  themselves,  although  the  bulk  of  the  houses  contain 
only  three  rooms.  The  incumbent  tells  me  the  aristocracy 
of  his  parish  consists  of  families  who  are  able  to  indulge  in 
the  luxury  of  .two  rooms.  But  the  greater  number  have 
one  room,  and  one  only,  and  this  is  sometimes  divided 
between  more  than  one  family. 

"  Half  of  these  houses  are  under  notice  for  the  railway." 

And  Lord  Shaftesbury  described  a  great  demolition  of 
houses  which  took  place  a  few  years  previously  in  the 
neighbourhood  of  Field  Lane,  City :  "  1,000  houses 
were  pulled  down ;  4,000  families,  comprising  12,000  indi- 
viduals, were  turned  out  and  driven  into  the  surrounding 
tenements." 

Lord  Granville  suggested,  as  a  remedy,  the  provision  of 
cheap  trains  to  carry  artisans  from  healthy  dwellings  in  the 
suburbs  to  the  scene  of  their  work,  and  Lord  Bedesdale 
said  he  had  introduced  clauses  into  the  Railway  Bill  pro- 
viding that  the  companies  should  run  a  cheap  train  every 
day.  But,  as  Lord  Shaftesbury  pointed  out,t  that  would 
not  be  sufficient,  as — 

"  In  some  cases  the  men  are  under  an  engagement  to 
their  employers  not  to  live  more  than  a  certain  distance  from 
the  warehouse,"  in  order  that  no  time  might  be  lost  in 
executing  orders. 

*  Hansard,  vol.  clxi.  p.  1061.  f  Ibid.,  vol.  clxii.  p.  148. 


166      THE  SANITARY  EVOLUTION 

The  remedy,  moreover,  could  only  be  very  gradual  in  its 
operation,  and  was  quite  inadequate  to  meet  the  existing 
emergency. 

This  demolition  of  houses  had  thus  the  twofold  result  of 
at  once  intensifying  overcrowding  in  the  remaining  houses 
in  the  localities  affected,  and  in  extending  the  area  of  over- 
crowding by  causing  a  migration  to  other  localities,  many  of 
which  were  themselves  rapidly  becoming  overcrowded.  And 
this,  combined  with  the  natural  growth  of  the  population 
and  the  constant  stream  of  immigration  into  London, 
resulted  in  overcrowding  on  a  far  larger  scale  than  had 
hitherto  prevailed. 

In  Mile-End-Old-Town  the  "West  Ward  had  received  in 
the  decade  1851-61  an  addition  of  3,094  persons,  whilst 
but  84  new  houses  had  been  built — the  South  Ward  1,372 
persons  and  71  new  houses  built. 

In  Shoreditch,  in  1863,  "  The  tendency  to  overcrowding 
was  increasing  year  by  year. 

"Being  mostly  operatives,  &c.  .  .  .  accustomed  to  live 
near  their  places  of  employment,  they  were  naturally  un- 
willing to  travel  further  than  necessary,  and  so  have  accepted 
the  readiest  accommodation  for  their  families." 

Of  Whitechapel,  the  Medical  Officer  of  Health  wrote  in 
1865  :— 

"  The  evil  of  overcrowding  is  annually  increasing,  and  if 
means  be  not  adopted  to  check  it,  the  overcrowding  will 
soon  become  of  an  alarming  extent.  .  .  . 

"  Houses  formerly  occupied  by  single  families  are  let  out  in 
separate  tenements,  and  every  room  now  contains  a  distinct 
family ;  and  to  such  an  extent  is  this  separate  letting  of 
rooms  carried  out,  that  from  information  given  me  there  is 
not  a  single  street  in  the  parish  of  Whitechapel  that  is  not 
more  or  less  a  nursery  of  pauperism  in  consequence  of  this 
sub-division  of  tenements." 

Away  in  the  west,  in  Fulham,  there  had  been  a  "  flood  of 
immigrants,"  chiefly  of  "  the  lower  and  labouring  classes." 
The  population  had  increased  30  per  cent.,  and  the  Medical 
Officer  of  Health  wrote  (1865)  :— 

"In  watching  the  enormous  accession  of  population  to 


OF   LONDON  167 

the  Fulham  district,  one  cannot  otherwise  than  observe  the 
constant  tendency  to  overcrowding  amongst  the  labouring 
people,  whilst  there  seems  every  possibility  of  this  human 
tide  increasing.  The  tremendous  demolition  of  the  houses 
hitherto  occupied  by  the  working  classes  more  imme- 
diately in  London  itself  has  dislodged  thousands  of  families, 
whilst  no  systematised  provision  has  been  made  for  their 
reception." 

In  Westminster  the  Medical  Officer  of  Health  wrote  in 
1865  :— 

"  The  dwellings  of  the  poor  were  never  in  a  worse  or 
more  unsatisfactory  state  than  they  are  at  present  from  the 
large  number  of  houses  that  have  been  already  demolished. 
The  poor  are  now  driven  into  the  most  wretched  apartments, 
and  which,  in  consequence  of  the  increased  demand,  can 
only  be  obtained  at  the  most  extravagant  rates.  They  are 
consequently  compelled  to  herd  together  in  one  room,  usually 
barely  sufficient  for  half  of  those  it  is  now  made  to  hold." 

The  south  side  of  the  river  was  much  in  the  same  plight 
as  the  north ;  but  there,  there  was  more  room  for  expan- 
sion. 

The  Medical  Officer  of  Health  for  St,  Saviour,  South- 
wark,  wrote  in  1865  : — 

"  The  numerous  improvements  which  continue  to  be 
made  in  and  about  the  heart  of  London  have  so  increased 
the  value  of  house  property  that  overcrowding  has  been 
almost  inevitable. 

"  .  .  .  In  a  vast  number  of  instances  families  numbering 
four  to  seven  persons,  ill  or  well,  live,  cook,  wash,  and  sleep 
in  rooms  the  dimensions  of  which  are  not  greater  than  is 
now  demanded  for  each  sick  person  in  the  workhouse." 

The  Medical  Officer  of  Health  for  St.  George-the-Martyr, 
Southwark,  wrote : — 

'*  In  many  of  the  districts  of  the  metropolis  between  60 
and  70  per  cent,  of  the  population  are  compelled  to  live  in 
one  small  overcrowded  room,  and  in  which  every  domestic 
operation  has  to  be  carried  on  ;  in  it  birth  and  death  takes 
place ;  there  plays  the  infant,  there  lies  the  corpse ;  it  is  lived 
in  by  day,  and  slept  in  by  night." 


168      THE  SANITARY  EVOLUTION 

In  the  necessity  for  house  accommodation  all  sorts  of 
places  were  being  pressed  into  use,  and  people  driven  into 
"places  that  are  themselves  unfit  for  habitation,  not  having 
the  elements  of  life  and  health  about  them." 

The  Medical  Officer  of  Health  for  Paddington  described, 
in  1867,  how  mews  had  been  thus  utilised  : — 

"  In  fact  these  back  streets,  originally  built  and  intended 
for  horses  and  vehicles,  and  only  those  persons  without 
encumbrances  who  are  engaged  attending  to  them,  have 
now  become  the  resort  of  persons  with  large  families  follow- 
ing all  kinds  of  business — rag,  bone,  and  bottle  stores,  shops 
of  various  kinds,  including  beer-houses,  builders,  carpenters, 
smiths,  tailors,  sweeps,  find  accommodation  here.  Inhabit- 
ing the  rooms  above,  too  small,  and  unfitted  with  proper 
domestic  accommodation  for  a  family,  live  a  vast  popula- 
tion of  all  ages.  These  evils,  rather  than  otherwise,  are 
increasing." 

Into  such  houses  and  such  rooms  the  people  were  by 
stress  of  circumstances  compelled  to  go,  and,  as  the  Medical 
Officer  of  Health  for  St.  Giles'  pointed  out  (1863)  :— 

"  A  larger  rent  can  be  obtained  for  the  same  room  if  it  is 
overcrowded  by  a  large  family  than  if  it  be  hired  for  only  as 
many  inmates  as  it  can  properly  receive.  Hence  the  interests 
of  landlords  are  constantly  on  the  one  side,  the  health  of  the 
poor  on  the  other.  .  ,  ." 

What  this  pressure  upon  accommodation  produced  may 
be  gathered  from  a  few  figures  given  by  the  Medical  Officer 
of  Health  for  Whitechapel : — 

Houses.    Rooms.   Inmates. 

In  Slater's  Court,  Whitechapel      10        31        170 
In  Marlborough  Court      .         .        7        20  82 

In  Hunt  Court         ...        8        32        158 

"  In  one  room  in  Swan  Court,  having  one  window,  seven 
persons  slept — a  man  and  his  wife,  the  daughter  aged  24  in 
consumption  lying  in  bed,  and  four  younger  children ;  the 
cubic  contents  of  the  room  were  910  =  130  cubic  feet  to  each 
person. 

"In  Bell  Court  four  persons  occupied  a  room  with  94 
cubic  feet  each. 


OF  LONDON  169 

"In  three  rooms  in  Hayes  Court,  each  10  x  8  x  8  feet; 
each  with  only  one  window  opening  into  a  narrow  court ; 
each  occupied  by  eight  persons  =  80  cubic  feet  to  each 
person." 

The  Medical  Officer  of  Health  for  St.  Pan  eras  (1865) 
described  some  of  the  consequences  of  the  conversion  of  a 
house,  built  originally  for  one  family,  into  one  inhabited  by 
several  families : — 

" .  .  .  At  present  these  families  occupy  usually  a  single 
room  only  in  a  house  of  six  or  eight  rooms  adapted  for  only 
one  family.  The  water  supply  is  inadequate,  and  at  some 
distance  from  the  upper  rooms,  and  there  is  but  one  closet, 
one  dust  bin,  one  coal  cellar,  and  one  wash  house  for  the 
whole.  No  one  is  responsible  for  the  cleanly  condition  of 
the  closet,  the  water  tank,  the  single  staircase,  the  base- 
ment, the  areas,  and  the  yard,  or  for  emptying  the  dust 
bin." 

One  of  the  worst  forms  of  overcrowding  was  when  it 
resulted  in  what  was  described  as  "indecent  occupation." 
For  instance,  as  reported  (1861)  by  the  Medical  Officer  of 
Health  for  Whitechapel : — 

"  In  a  room  in  Windmill  Court  there  slept  the  mother, 
two  adult  daughters,  and  two  adult  sons. 

"  In  another  room  in  the  same  court,  a  man  and  his  wife, 
the  daughter  aged  16,  and  three  adult  sons." 

In  68  instances  the  rooms  were  "  indecently  occupied," 
that  is  to  say,  adult  brothers  and  sisters,  or  a  father  and 
daughter  slept  in  the  same  room. 

And  he  wrote  : — 

"  We  may  well  inquire  how  such  gross  indecency  and 
want  of  self-respect  can  exist  in  this  country,  which  is 
usually  considered  to  be  the  centre  of  civilisation,  and  where 
so  much  money  is  spent  in  imparting  religious  and  moral 
instruction  to  the  people — yet  such  is  the  state  in  which 
many  of  the  inhabitants  of  this  district  live,  as  is  ascertained 
on  a  house-to-house  visitation." 

And  in  the  following  year  he  v^rote  : — 

"  On  visiting  the  houses  in  low  neighbourhoods  it  is  by  no 
means  of  unfrequent  occurrence  to  find  an  adult  brother  and 


170      THE   SANITARY  EVOLUTION 

sister,  a  father  and  adult  daughter,  a  mother  and  adult  son, 
occupying  the  same  bed.  What  good  citizenship  can  be 
expected  to  be  manifested  by  a  class  in  whom  the  moral 
feeling  is  so  low?  " 

The  Medical  Officer  of  Health  for  St.  James',  in  his  report 
(1862),  wrote:— 

"  This  close  association  of  several  families  in  one  house 
is  productive  of  immense  evil ;  it  prevents  proper  parental 
control ;  it  encourages  an  association  of  the  sexes  which 
leads  directly  to  one  of  our  greatest  social  evils  ;  and  is  one 
of  the  most  fruitful  causes  of  the  spread  and  fatality  of 
zymotic  diseases  of  childhood,  and  lays  the  foundation  of 
the  scrofula  and  consumption  which  every  year  carry  off  a 
fifth  of  all  who  die  amongst  us.  .  .  . 

"It  is  almost  impossible,  amidst  the  filth  and  stench  of 
dirty  houses  and  imperfect  drains,  that  the  working  man's 
family  should  be  able  to  develop  those  moral  and  intellectual 
qualities  which  are,  after  all,  more  worth  to  the  community 
than  any  saving  of  rates." 

The  Medical  Officer  of  Health  for  St.  Martin-in-the-Fields, 
wrote  (1866)  :— 

"Kents  have  become  so  heavy  that  few  labouring  men  can 
afford  more  than  one  room.  Overcrowding  in  such  rooms 
must  increase,  and  with  it  the  fearful  results  of  men,  women, 
girls,  and  boys,  all  sleeping  in  the  same  apartment.  Neither 
religion  nor  morality  can  increase  under  the  existing  cir- 
cumstances of  our  poorer  classes.  It  is  almost  returning  to 
the  habits  of  our  barbarous  ancestors  or  the  untutored 
savages  of  Africa  and  Australia." 

And  the  Medical  Officer  of  Health  for  Holborn  wrote  : — 

"  Depend  upon  it,  the  moral  and  physical  training  of  the 
people  is  more  influenced  by  lessons — whether  in  health  and 
cleanliness,  or  in  religion  and  morality — that  they  are  con- 
stantly receiving  at  their  own  firesides  than  by  any  extraneous 
teachings. 

"When  a  child  has  been  allowed  to  grow  up  with  a 
diseased  body,  and  a  polluted  mind,  in  a  wretched  room, 
without  light,  without  cleanliness,  and  without  any  notions 
of  decency,  our  curative  efforts,  whether  medical,  missionary, 


OF   LONDON  171 

or  reformatory,  are  as  mere  patchwork  compared  with  the 
great  preventive  precaution  of  keeping  his  home  as  pure,  as 
decent,  and  as  wholesome,  as  possible." 

No  more  powerful  description  can  be  given  of  the  moral 
evils  of  overcrowding  than  that  of  Dr.  J.  Simon  in 
1865  :— 

"Where  'overcrowding'  exists  in  its  sanitary  sense, 
almost  always  it  exists  even  more  perniciously  in  certain 
moral  senses.  In  its  higher  degrees  it  almost  necessarily 
involves  such  negation  of  all  delicacy,  such  unclean  confusion 
of  bodies  and  bodily  functions,  such  mutual  exposure  of 
animal  and  sexual  nakedness,  as  is  rather  bestial  than 
human. 

"  To  be  subject  to  these  influences  is  a  degradation  which 
must  become  deeper  and  deeper  for  those  on  whom  it  con- 
tinues to  work.  To  children  who  are  born  under  its  curse, 
it  must  often  be  a  very  baptism  into  infamy."  * 

Overcrowding  was  not  confined  to  tenement-house  rooms 
alone.  The  great  bulk  of  the  working  classes  left  their 
overcrowded  abodes  to  do  their  day's  work  in  overcrowded 
factories,  workshops,  and  workplaces ;  and  in  very  many 
such  places  men,  women,  and  even  children  were  crammed 
together  in  rooms  where  healthy  existence  was  impossible. 

A  great  deal  of  information  on  this  great  branch  of  the 
sanitary  condition  of  the  inhabitants  of  London  is  given  in 
the  Eeports  from  the  Commissioners  on  Children's  Employ- 
ment, and  in  the  very  valuable  reports  of  special  inquiries 
instituted  by  the  Medical  Department  of  the  Privy  Council. 

One  of  these  inquiries  related  to  Bakehouses,  of  which 
there  were  about  3,000  in  the  metropolis  in  1862.  f 

As  a  rule  the  place  in  which  the  bread  of  London  was 
made  was  what  in  houses  in  general  was  the  coal-hole  and 
the  front  kitchen. 

Very  many  bakehouses  in  London  were  stated  to  be  in  a 
shockingly  filthy  state,  arising  from  imperfect  sewerage  and 
bad  ventilation  and  neglect,  and  the  bread  must,  during 

*  P.P.  1866,  vol.  xxxiii. 

\  See  P.P.  1863,  vol.  xxv.  Report  by  H.  S.  Tremanheere  to  the 
Home  Secretary,  1862. 


172      THE   SANITARY  EVOLUTION 

the  process  of  fermentation,  get  impregnated  with  the 
noxious  gases. 

The  sleeping  places  were  of  the  worst  description,*  some 
of  the  men  sleeping  in  the  bakehouse  itself.  Many  bake- 
houses were  infested  with  rats,  beetles,  cockroaches,  and 
noxious  smells.  The  smells  from  the  drains  were  very 
offensive — the  air  of  the  small  bakehouses  was  generally 
overloaded  with  foul  gases  from  the  drains,  from  the  ovens, 
and  from  the  fermentations  of  the  bread,  and  with  the 
emanations  from  the  men's  bodies ;  the  air  thus  contami- 
nated was  necessarily  incorporated  with  the  dough  in  the 
process  of  kneading. 

Half  of  the  bakehouses  in  London  would,  it  was  stated, 
require  the  application  to  them  of  the  Nuisances  Eemoval  Act. 

Another  inquiry  related  to  the  tailoring  trade  in  the 
metropolis.!  The  places  in  which  work  was  done  were 
reported  as  varying  much  in  their  sanitary  conditions, 
but  almost  universally  were  overcrowded  and  ill-venti- 
lated, and  in  a  high  degree  unfavourable  to  health.  Some 
were  underground,  either  in  the  basement  of  a  house,  or 
built  like  a  large  kennel  in  a  small  enclosed  yard,  and 
were  such  that  no  domestic  servant  would  inhabit.  In 
exceedingly  few  shops  had  there  been  any  attempts  at 
ventilation.  The  ventilation  through  the  windows  was 
practically  inefficient,  and  instances  were  given  of  what 
had  been  found  in  sixteen  of  the  most  important  West-end 
shops.  In  one  an  average  of  156  cubic  feet  space  was 
allowed  to  each  operative,  in  another  150  cubic  feet,  in 
another  112  cubic  feet.  Deficient  ventilation,  heat,  and 
draughts,  were  the  causes  of  diseases. 

A  paper  read  by  Dr.  E.  Symes  Thompson  (Assistant 
Physician  to  King's  College  Hospital)  at  the  Social  Science 
Association  Meeting  in  London,  1862,  described  the  condition 
under  which  printers  did  their  work. 

*  "  In  a  bakehouse  in  St.  Martin's  Lane,  eight  men  slept  in  one  room 
(separated  from  the  bakehouse)  which  had  nothing  that  deserves  the 
name  of  a  window  "  (Report  of  Medical  Officer  of  Health,  1864). 

f  P.P.  1864,  vol.  xxviii.  Sixth  Report  of  the  Medical  Officer  of  the 
Privy  Council  (1863). 


OF  LONDON  173 

"  Printers  often  work  sixteen  to  eighteen  hours  a  day 
in  a  confined  and  heated  atmosphere;  perhaps  thirty  men 
and  as  many  gaslights  in  a  low  room  without  ventilation 
or  chimney,  where  air  only  enters  when  the  door  is 
opened.  . .  . 

"  Printing  is  only  one  of  the  many  trades  which  entail  the 
sacrifice  of  every  hygienic  necessity,  and  the  cause  of  the 
unhealthy  looks  of  the  workpeople  cannot  fail  to  strike  any 
observant  person  who  may  visit  their  workshops.  The 
rooms  are  mostly  low,  the  windows  fixed,  and  there  is  often 
no  chimney  or  other  ventilation. 

"  This  is  the  case  in  large  and  small  factories  as  well  as  in 
workshops — in  the  workroom  of  the  miUiner,  the  sempstress, 
or  the  bookbinder. 

"  In  many  occupations,  besides  the  evils  alluded  to,  the 
air  is  charged  with  foreign  matters,  which  are  drawn  into 
the  lungs  at  each  inspiration ;  e.g.,  the  sorting  and  tearing 
up  of  dirty  rags  in  paper  manufactories.  The  dust  and  fluff 
arising  in  flax,  woollen,  and  cotton  factories,  and  in  furworks, 
produce  similar  results — and  brass  finishers." 

And  in  another  paper  at  the  same  meeting  Mr.  George 
Godwin  detailed  his  experiences  as  regarded  the  conditions 
under  which  milliners,  dressmakers,  and  other  needlewomen 
worked. 

"  In  an  upper  room  in  Oxford  Street,  not  10  feet  square, 
I  have  seen  a  dozen  delicate  young  women  closely  shut  up 
making  artificial  flowers  ;  and  there  when  business  is 
pressing  they  work  from  8  in  the  morning  till  12  o'clock 
at  night. 

"  Many  of  the  workrooms  of  fashionable  milliners  are 
similarly  overcrowded,  as  are  those  where  young  girls  are 
engaged  in  book-stitching." 

He  gave  as  an  example  a  house  in  Fleet  Street. 

"  The  staircase  is  confined  and  without  ventilation — the 
atmosphere  is  steaming  and  smells  of  glue. 

"  In  the  first  room  looked  into,  40  young  women  and  girls 
were  sorting  and  stitching  books.  There  was  a  stove  but 
no  ventilation.  .  .  .  There  were  more  than  200  persons  in 
that  house,  pent  up  without  provision  of  the  first  necessity 


174      THE   SANITARY   EVOLUTION 

of  life — pure  air.  Poor  creatures  so  placed  are  being  slowly 
slain. 

"  Other  trades,  such  as  cap  and  bonnet  makers,  trimmers, 
blond-joiners,  &c.,  to  which  I  have  looked  with  some  little 
care,  are  forced  in  many  places  to  do  just  the  same  thing." 

*'  The  extent  of  suffering  entailed,  and  the  loss  to  the 
community,  it  would  be  difficult  to  calculate.  It  is  time 
that  legislation  should  be  tried  to  secure  wholesome  work- 
places for  the  people.  Interference  is  needed  for  thou- 
sands of  persons — especially  young  females — the  debilitated 
mothers  in  posse,  should  they  live,  of  our  future  population. 
In  our  infant  schools,  too,  where  incalculable  mischief  is 
done  by  overcrowding,  it  is  greatly  required.  The  evil  is 
sapping  the  strength  of  the  land." 

"  In  several  parts  of  London  persons  employed  in  making 
cheap  clothing  are  boxed  up  in  crowds,  .  .  .  some  striving 
to  get  a  living  in  a  death-giving  atmosphere. 

"  Shoemakers  are  often  as  ill-placed.  In  wretched  apart- 
ments, in  an  ill-drained  house,  may  be  found  men  and  boys 
huddled  together  without  room  to  breathe." 

It  was  under  such  pitiable  conditions  that  large  masses  of 
the  working  classes  of  London  had  to  earn  their  daily 
bread. 

Lord  Shaftesbury  truly  said  that  "  the  sanitary  condition 
of  these  people  was  of  national  importance,  not  only  on 
account  of  the  waste  of  life,  but  the  waste  of  health  which 
every  year  threw  thousands  and  tens  of  thousands  upon 
the  rates.* 

And  large  numbers  of  children  were  also  employed  under 
insanitary  conditions,  and  were  made  to  do  heavy  work  for 
long  hours,  and  the  consequences  to  their  health  were 
disastrous.!  That  their  constitutions  should  be  undermined 
and  their  physical  development  should  be  most  seriously 
deteriorated  was  a  necessary  result. 

There  was  a  chorus  from  the  Medical  Officers  of  Health  as 
to  the  evil  sanitary  consequences  of  overcrowding. 

*  Hansard,  1864,  June  16,  p.  1835. 

f  See  Reports  of  the  Commissioners  on  Children's  Employment, 
1864-6. 


OF   LONDON  175 

"  Overcrowded  dwellings  are  among  the  most  prolific 
sources  of  disease,  immorality,  and  pauperism."  * 

"  Overcrowding — one  of  the  elements  by  which  disease  is 
not  only  generated  but  sustained."  t 

"  Overcrowding  is  a  constant  source  of  fever." 

"  The  great  difficulty  of  obtaining  lodgment  for  the  working 
classes  has  caused  overcrowding  of  the  poor  in  an  unpre- 
cedented manner,  and  consequently  the  development  of 
typhus  which  is  considered  to  be  bred  in  the  pestilential 
atmosphere  of  overcrowded  dwellings."  I 

Overcrowding  led  to  numerous,  indeed  to  all  sorts  and 
kinds  of  diseases. 

The  Medical  Officer  of  Health  for  St.  Pancras  wrote  : — 

"  It  has  been  shown  that  consumption  and  the  so-called 
tubercular  diseases  are  developed  by  want  of  pure  air  more 
than  by  any  other  cause." 

And  not  alone  did  the  overcrowding  lead  to  disease, 
but  it  rendered  it  difficult  if  not  impossible  to  check 
disease. 

**  How  is  it  possible,"  wrote  one  of  them,  "  to  prevent 
the  spread  and  fatality  of  fever  and  whooping-cough 
when  six  or  seven  persons  are  shut  up  in  one  small  room 
breathing  the  same  air  loaded  with  zymotic  poison  over  and 
over  again?" 

"  The  danger  of  allowing  a  deadly  atmosphere  to  be 
engendered  by  the  crowding  together  of  persons  in  a  small 
room  without  sufficient  ventilation  is  unfortunately  not 
confined  to  the  inmates  of  that  particular  room,  but  those 
diseases  which  are  therein  generated  extend  far  beyond  its 
immediate  vicinity,  and  under  some  circumstances  a  large 
portion  of  a  district  will  suffer  in  consequence.  § 

Dr.  Kendle,  previously  Medical  Officer  of  Health  for  St, 
George-the-Martyr,  in  his  evidence  ||  before  a  Select  Com- 
mittee in  1866,  said : — 

"...  The  overcrowding  exists  to  such  an  extent  that 

*  Shoreditch,  1863.  f  Westminster,  1861-2.  J  1863-4. 

§  Whitechapel,  1861. 

II  P.P.,  vol.  clxxxvi.  Select  Committee  of  House  of  Commons  on 
Medical  Local  Government,  1866,  p.  259. 


176      THE   SANITARY   EVOLUTION 

the  poor  cannot  by  any  possibility  do  other  than  breed 
disease,  and  when  they  breed  it  they  give  it  to  others." 

Lord  Shaftesbury  said  : — 

"  As  to  the  effects  of  all  this  overcrowding,  can  anything 
be  more  prejudicial  to  the  human  system  than  the  filthy 
squalor,  the  foetid  air,  and  depressing  influences  of  these 
dwellings?- 

"When  you  ask  why  so  many  of  the  working  men  betake 
themselves  to  the  ale-house  or  gin-palace,  the  answer  lies  in 
the  detestable  state  of  their  homes. 

"1  have  had  it  from  hundreds  of  both  women  and  men 
that  this  cause,  and  this  cause  alone,  has  driven  them  to  the 
use  of  ardent  spirits.  .  .  .  Nine-tenths  of  our  poverty, 
misery,  and  crime,  are  produced  by  habits  of  intoxication, 
and  I  trace  those  habits,  not  altogether,  but  mainly,  to  the 
pestilential  and  ruinous  domiciliary  condition  of  the  great 
mass  of  the  population  of  this  metropolis  and  the  large  towns 
of  the  country."* 

"No  bodily  labour  induces  an  exhaustion  of  the  vital 
powers  comparable  to  that  resulting  from  the  habitual 
breathing  of  air  contaminated  by  the  overcrowding  of 
human  beings."  t 

For  children  born  under  such  circumstances  of  over- 
crowding and  filth,  and  in  such  insanitary  surroundings, 
birth  was  mostly  followed  by  an  early  death. 

"  Infancy  in  London  has  to  creep  into  life  in  the  midst  of 
foes,"  as  the  Times  truly  remarked  in  1861. 

Among  the  greatest  of  these  foes  was  overcrowding.  The 
statistics  of  infantile  mortality  are  fairly  reliable,  and,  so  far 
as  there  are  errors,  those  errors  were  in  understating  and  not 
overstating  it. 

In  St.  Giles,  in  1861,  4S^  per  cent,  of  the  total  number  of 
deaths  were  of  children  under  five  years  of  age. 

"  This  enormous  infantile  mortality,"  wrote  the  Medical 
Officer  of  Health,  "  is  unfortunately  only  what  is  customary 
in  our  district." 

In  the  Strand,  1861,  the  percentage  of  deaths  under  five 

*  Hansard,  1861,  vol.  clxi.  p.  1070. 

f  Report  of  Coromissioners.     P.P.  1864,  vol.  xxii.  p.  xlix. 


OF  LONDON  177 

annually  exceeded  45  per  cent,  of  the  total  deaths.  In 
Westminster,  in  1861,  there  were  1,685  deaths,  770  being 
those  of  children  under  five — of  which  in  St.  John's  parish, 
out  of  834  deaths,  427  were  under  five — or  over  50  per  cent. 

In  Bethnal  Green  in  1862  it  was  close  upon  60  per  cent. 

In  the  Potteries,  Notting  Dale,  with  a  population  of  1,100, 
the  deaths  of  children  in  1870  under  five  were  63  per  cent, 
of  all  deaths.     In  1871,  72  per  cent. 

On  the  south  side  of  the  river  the  same  tale  was  told.  In 
Wandsworth  42  per  cent,  in  1861 ;  in  Battersea  45  per  cent. 
in  1862;  in  Eotherhithe,  in  1862,  nearly  50  per  cent.;  in 
Bermondsey,  in  1863,  57  per  cent. 

"It  certainly,"  wrote  the  Medical  Officer  of  Health  for 
Fulham,  "could  not  have  been  intended  by  Providence  that 
of  all  the  children  bom,  nearly  one-half  should  die  without 
attaining  one-fourteenth  part  of  the  threescore  years  and  ten 
allotted  to  mankind — and  yet  we  see  the  yearly  realisation 
of  this  astounding  fact." 

Other  causes  besides  overcrowding  contributed  to  this 
great  mortality. 

"Poverty,"  wrote  the  Medical  Officer  of  Health  of  Poplar, 
"  with  its  concomitants — defective  nourishment,  want  of 
cleanliness  and  ventilation,  malaria,  overcrowded  dwellings, 
deficient  supply  or  impure  quality  of  water — these  all  act 
with  unerring  force  upon  the  tender  constitutions  of  the 
young." 

And  another  wrote  : — 

"What  with  overcrowding,  insufficient  food,  and  inatten- 
tion to  cleanliness,  it  is  almost  impossible  an  infant  can  resist 
an  attack  of  the  commonest  disorder." 

And  some  places  were  in  such  evil  sanitary  condition 
that  child  life  was  impossible  therein.  Of  two  Courts 
in  Islington  the  Medical  Officer  of  Health  reported  in 
1863  :— 

"Young  children  cannot  live  there.  All  that  are  born 
there,  or  are  brought  to  reside  there,  are  doomed  to  die  within 
two  years." 

The  state  of  the  public  health  generally  as  the  result  of 
all  these  sanitary  abominations  was  very  unsatisfactory. 

13 


178      THE  SANITAUY  EVOLUTION 

In  1863  the  mortality  of  London  was  unusually  high. 

The  Medical  Officer  of  Health  for  St.  Giles'  wrote  :— 

*'  The  year  has  been  conspicuous  for  a  high  mortality 
resulting  from  the  prevalence  of  epidemics  to  an  unusual 
degree — smallpox,  scarlatina,  typhus." 

The  following  year  he  reported  to  have  been — 

"  A  year  of  exceptional  mortality.  .  .  .  Death  rate  29*74 
per  thousand,  or,  if  the  deaths  of  parishioners  in  hospitals 
be  included,  31*10.  .  .  .  Tubercular  diseases,  of  which 
consumption  affecting  the  lungs  is  the  most  important, 
were  as  usual  intensely  fatal  in  our  district." 

The  Medical  Officer  of  Health  for  Whitechapel  drew 
attention  to  the  increase  of  mortality  in  his  district.  He 
was  evidently  puzzled  and  perplexed  by  it,  and  "  candidly 
confessed  "  his  inability  to  account  for  it. 

"I  may,  however,  venture  a  few  conjectures."  Among 
them  was  this  very  suggestive  one — "  that  a  change  has 
taken  place  in  the  constitution  of  the  people  so  that  they 
are  now  less  able  to  bear  the  effects  of  disease  than 
formerly." 

Suggestions  and  recommendations  for  ameliorating  this 
appalling  condition  of  things  poured  in  upon  many  of  the 
local  authorities  from  their  Medical  Officers  of  Health. 

Upon  several  points  there  was  an  absolute  consensus 
of  opinion. 

One  of  these  was  that  all  houses  let  out  in  separate 
tenements  and  inhabited  by  many  families  should  be 
registered  by  the  local  authorities — that  rules  and  regu- 
lations should  be  made  for  their  management,  and  that 
constant  inspection  by  the  sanitary  authority  was  an 
absolute  necessity  if  the  proper  conditions  of  health  were 
to  be  maintained. 

The  Medical  Officer  of  Health  for  Bethnal  Green 
wrote : — 

"All  sanitary  evils  fall  with  greatest  force  upon  those 
who  are  unable  to  quit  the  scene  of  their  misery  or  to 
provide  the  means  for  its  alleviation. 

"  Nothing  but  adaptation  of  the  present  houses  to  the 
necessities  of  healthy  existence  and  the  demolition  of  those 


OF   LONDON  179 

houses  that  are  unfit  for  human  habitation  can  contribute 
so  much  to  hfe  and  strength." 

A  Committee  of  the  District  Board  in  Poplar  wrote 
(1866)  :— 

"It  would  be  a  satisfactory  alteration  of  the  law  if  no 
houses  were  allowed  to  be  tenanted  unless  a  certificate  that 
these  premises  were  fit  for  habitation  were  first  obtained 
from  the  District  Board  of  Works." 

And  the  necessity  of  constant  inspection  was  even  more 
vigorously  expressed. 

The    Medical    Officer    of    Health    for    Hackney    wrote 

(1861)  :- 

"  The  experience  of  the  past  year  again  shows  the 
necessity  of  keeping  up  a  regular  and  efficient  supervision 
of  the  interior  of  houses.  .  .  . 

"It  is  only  by  repeated  and  careful  inspection  of  the 
dwellings  of  the  poor,  and  an ,  inculcation  at  these  visits 
of  the  necessity  for  keeping  clean  their  rooms  that  epidemic 
diseases  can  be  kept  in  check." 

The   Medical    Officer  of    Health  for   St.   James'    wrote 

(1862)  :— 

"  The  nuisances  which  are  removed,  are  constantly 
recurring.  It  is  only  by  constant  inspection  and  by 
supervision  repeated  systematically  from  day  to  day,  and 
week  to  week,  that  those  nuisances  can  be  kept  down  which 
are  ever  ready  to  destroy  the  life,  and  at  one  and  the  same 
time  sap  the  health  and  undermine  the  morality  of  the 
community." 

The  Medical  Officer  of  Health  for  Whitechapel  wrote  : — 

"If  it  were  not  for  the  vigilance  of  the  Inspectors  in 
visiting  the  houses  of  the  poor,  nuisances  would  remain 
altogether  unattended  to ;  for  very  few  of  the  poor  dare  to 
make  a  complaint  from  fear  of  being  compelled  to  quit  their 
tenements." 

The  Medical  Officers  of  Health  recognised  that  much  of 
the  bad  condition  of  the  dwellings  of  the  poorer  classes 
was  due  to  the  people  themselves. 

Thus  the  Medical  Officer  of  Health  for  Westminster 
wrote  (1865-6):— 


180      THE   SANITARY  EVOLUTION 

"It  is  much  to  be  regretted  that  in  certain  districts 
of  the  parish  only  a  temporary  good  is  effected  by  a 
sometimes  lavish  expenditure  on  the  part  of  the  proprietor. 
The  habits  of  the  people  are  such  that  it  is  almost  im- 
possible to  do  anything  for  their  benefit.  Not  only  are  they 
filthy  in  themselves,  but  they  take  every  opportunity  to 
break,  destroy,  and  steal  anything  that  may  be  of  value, 
and  what  is  even  worse  they  appear  to  negative  any 
sanitary  precaution  effected  for  their  benefit." 

But  the  broad  truth  was  that  the  real,  the  primary 
responsibility  rested  upon  the  "  owners." 

Theirs  was  the  property.  And  them  it  behoved  to  keep 
that  property  in  a  condition  which  was  not  a  danger  to  the 
community  and  to  the  State. 

The  Medical  Officer  of  Health  for  Whitechapel  wrote 
(1865)  :— 

"  The  duty  and  interests  of  landlords  appear  to  be  at 
variance  as  regards  their  doing  to  their  houses  what  is 
absolutely  necessary  for  the  well-being  of  their  tenants.  It 
is  unquestionably  the  duty  of  landlords  to  keep  the  houses 
which  they  let  out  in  separate  tenements  to  the  poor  in 
a  healthy  condition ;  but  this  is  not  always  done  even  if 
compulsory  orders  are  signed  and  summonses  issued.  .  .  . 

"  Many  of  the  landlords  of  small  house  property  fully 
understand  and  carry  out  the  rights  of  ownership,  but  fail 
to  carry  out  the  duties  which  are  enjoined  upon  them  as 
owners." 

The  Medical  Officer  of  Health  for  Islington,  referring  to 
some  vile  property  in  his  parish,  wrote  (1863)  : — 

"  Landlords  of  such  property  as  this  will  rarely  do 
anything  out  of  consideration  for  the  health  or  lives  of 
their  tenants ;  compulsion  alone  will  extort  amendments. 
What  is  needed  here  is  the  closure  of  the  fatal  houses  until 
made  fit  for  human  habitation." 

How  an  "owner"  could  manage  his  property  can  be 
gathered  from  the  following  report  of  the  Medical  Officer  ot 
Health  for  Paddington  (1863),  which  called  attention  to  "the 
insanitary  condition  of  a  block  of  houses  (about  thirty  in 
number)  which  had  been  for  many  years  notoriously  liable 


OF   LONDON  181 

to  the  invasion  of  epidemics  and  to  the  prevalence  of  those 
diseases  which  are  the  known  product  of  sanitary  neglect — 
badly  constructed  and  dilapidated,  and  wanting  in  the 
commonest  appliances  of  cleanliness.  All  were  the  property 
of  one  individual  who  had  been  repeatedly  urged  to  put  them 
in  a  proper  sanitary  state." 

But  it  was  not  until  stringent  compulsory  measures  were 
taken  that  he  began  to  do  so,  and  some  years  elapsed  before 
they  were  really  done. 

Here  is  another  dreadful  case  of  overcrowding  and  in- 
sanitation — this  time  in  St.  Marylebone  (1868). 

Edwards  Place  : — 

"  Ten  six-roomed  houses  occupied  by  84  families,  277 
persons,  houses  very  dilapidated,  many  unfit  for  human 
habitation.  Orders  for  sanitary  work  are  continually  being 
sent  out  by  the  Vestry  to  the  owner  of  this  wretched 
property. 

"A  rental  of  ^610  per  annum  would  be  an  extravagant  sum 
to  pay  for  either  of  these  miserable  dwellings,  yet  more  than 
three  times  that  sum  is  expected  from  the  destitute  and 
indigent  people  who  inhabit  them." 

Read  by  the  light  of  the  knowledge  that  insanitary 
property  meant  disease,  and  disablement,  and  death  to  a  very 
high  percentage  of  its  occupiers,  the  proper  compulsion  to 
have  applied  to  "owners"  such  as  these  would  have  been 
proceedings  before  a  Coroner's  jury  for  culpable  homicide  if 
not  for  actually  deliberate  murder. 

The  community  has  a  right  to  be  protected  from  the  evil 
results  of  the  miserable  housing  of  the  poor. 

Mr.  George  Godwin  said  in  1862,  at  the  meeting  of  the 
National  Association  for  Promoting  Social  Science  : — 

"  It  should  be  no  answer  to  the  requirement  of  a  certain 
cubical  space  for  each  occupier,  that  the  financial  resources 
of  the  parties  will  not  admit  of  it. 

"A  man  is  not  permitted  to  poison  withprussic  acid  those 
who  are  dependent  on  him  because  he  is  poor ;  neither 
should  he  be  allowed  on  that  ground  to  kill  them  with  bad 
air  and  set  up  a  fever-still  for  the  benefit  of  his  neighbours." 

Parliament,   under  the   pressure  of  a  slowly-developing 


182      THE   SANITARY  EVOLUTION 

public  opinion,  and  in  view  of  the  ever  accumulating 
evidence  and  proof  of  the  almost  incredible  insanitary  condi- 
tion in  which  great  masses  of  the  people  of  London  were 
living,  was  beginning  to  show  less  reluctance  to  discuss  and 
deal  with  some  of  the  multifarious  matters  affecting  the 
public  health. 

In  1860  it  passed  an  Act  which,  however  well  intentioned, 
was  not  of  much  effect.  It  was  an  effort  to  secure  more 
wholesome  articles  of  food  and  drink  for  the  public  by 
preventing  their  adulteration. 

The  past  history  of  such  legislation  was  rather  interest- 
ing.* In  1731  an  Act  has  been  passed  prescribing  a  penalty 
for  "  sophisticating  tea." 

"  Several  ill-disposed  people  frequently  dyeing,  fabricating, 
very  large  quantities  of  sloe-leaves,  &c.,  in  imitation  of  tea, 
and  colouring  or  staining  and  dyeing  such  leaves,  and  vend- 
ing the  same  as  real  tea  to  the  prejudice  of  the  health  of  His 
Majesty's  subjects." 

"  In  year  1766-7  a  further  Act  was  passed  inasmuch  as 
'  such  evil  practices  were  increased  to  a  very  great  degree  to 
the  injury  and  destruction  of  great  quantities  of  timber, 
wood,  and  underwoods.' 

"  Coffee  had  also  been  the  subject  of  legislation,  '  burnt 
scorched,  or  roasted  peas,  beans,  &c.,'  being  used  to 
adulterate  it. 

"In  1816  an  Act  was  passed  against  the  adulteration  of 
beer  and  porter,  and  the  use  of  molasses,  liquorice,  vitriol, 
quassia,  guinea  pepper,  or  opium,  and  a  lot  of  other  ingre- 
dients being  prohibited." 

"In  1836  an  Act  was  passed  against  the  adulteration  of 
bread." 

And  now  in  1860  it  was  enacted  that  "  every  person  who 
shall  sell  as  pure  or  unadulterated  any  article  of  food  or  drink 
which  is  adulterated  or  not  pure,"  should  on  conviction  be 
fined. 

The  Vestries  in  the  metropolis  were  empowered  to 
appoint  analysts.     The  appointment  was  voluntary  on  the 

*  See  P.P.  1874.  Beport  of  Select  Committee  on  the  Adulteration  of 
Food,  &c.    Evidence  of  H.  Owen. 


OF  LONDON  183 

part  of  the  local  authorities,  and,  if  analysts  were  appointed, 
their  duties  were  confined  to  receiving  and  analysing 
articles  submitted  to  them  by  the  purchasers,  and  certifying 
the  results.  The  purchasers  had  to  pay  the  cost.  No 
officer  was  appointed  to  obtain  samples  or  to  enforce  the 
Act.  And  the  Act  is  therefore  worthy  of  note  more  as  an 
illustration  of  the  inaction  of  the  local  authorities  than  for 
any  effect  it  had  as  regarded  the  prevention  of  adulteration. 

In  1863  Parliament  passed  the  "  Bakehouse  Kegulation 
Act,"*  which  enacted  that  every  bakehouse  should  be  kept 
in  a  cleanly  state,  should  be  frequently  lime-washed,  and 
should  be  properly  provided  with  proper  means  for  effectual 
ventilation,  and  be  free  from  effluvia  arising  from  any  drain, 
privy,  or  other  nuisance. 

Also  its  use  as  a  sleeping-place  was  prohibited,  and  the 
onus  of  enforcing  the  provisions  of  the  Act  was  imposed 
upon  the  local  sanitary  authority. 

And  in  1863  it  declared  f  that  the  law  made  in  1855  as  to 
the  inspection  and  seizure  of  unwholesome  food — meat, 
poultry,  flesh,  fish,  vegetables,  fruit,  &c.,  &c. — was  defective, 
and  that  other  and  more  effectual  provisions  should  be 
substituted  therefor;  and  others  were  accordingly  sub- 
stituted. 

By  an  Act  in  1864  the  main  principles  contained  in 
previous  Factory  Acts  were  carried  a  stage  further,  in  some 
instances  even  to  trades  carried  on  in  private  houses. 

"  Every  factory  to  which  this  Act  applies  shall  be  kept  in 
a  cleanly  state  and  be  ventilated  in  such  a  manner,  &c.,  as  to 
render  harmless  dust,  &c." 

Unfortunately  the  main  breakdown  in  the  metropolis 
in  regard  to  nearly  all  the  ameliorative  sanitary  legislation 
of  Parliament  was  directly  caused  by  the  very  local  autho- 
rities who  had  been  specially  created  for  the  purpose  of 
administering  those  laws.  Primarily  they  were  responsible 
for  the  failure  of  very  much  of  that  legislation,  and  they 
never  seem  to  have  at  all  realised,  or  been  impressed  by,  the 
gravity  of  their  trust,  or  by  the  great  responsibility  to 
their  fellow-citizens  which  their  position  entailed. 
*  26  and  27  Vic.  cap.  40.  f  Ibid.  cap.  117. 


184      THE   SANITARY  EVOLUTION 

Even  in  comparatively  small  matters  their  ingenuity  in 
counteracting  the  intentions  of  the  Legislature  was  remark- 
able, as  can  be  seen  from  the  following  passage  in  a  report 
of  one  of  the  Medical  Officers  of  Health  : — 

"  I  refer  specially  to  the  Sanitary  Acts,  to  the  Adultera- 
tion of  Food  Act,  and  to  the  Metropolitan  Gas  Act,  in  each 
of  which  cases  the  powers  entrusted  to  them  have  not  been 
carried  out. 

"  They  appointed  an  examiner  under  the  Adulteration 
of  Foods  Act  (1860),  and  also  under  the  Metropolitan 
Gas  Act  (1860),  but  the  person  appointed  had  no  tools 
given  him  with  which  to  perform  the  work  entrusted  to 
him. 

"  Both  the  Acts  are  dead  letters  in  the  parish.  As  to  the 
Metropolitan  Gas  Act,  it  conferred  a  large  benefit,  both  as 
to  purity  and  cost,  on  the  metropolis,  but  the  Vestries  failed 
to  carry  out  a  single  effective  or  important  provision  of  that 
Act." 

In  1860,  also,  an  Act  had  been  passed  empowering  the 
local  authorities  in  the  metropolis  to  provide  vehicles  for 
carrying  persons  suffering  from  infectious  diseases  to 
hospital,  and  so  obviating  the  danger  to  the  public  of  such 
persons  being  conveyed  in  cabs  or  other  public  vehicles. 
That  Act  was  also  inoperative. 

The  Vestries  and  District  Boards,  however,  did  perform  a 
considerable  amount  of  useful  work.  Local  sewerage  and 
drainage  works  were  on  the  whole  effectively  dealt  with. 
The  rest  of  the  work  done  was  mostly  of  the  routine  order, 
such  as  scavenging  and  paving  and  lighting,  though  even 
that  was  not  always  done  in  the  most  sensible  way,  as 
exemplified  in  Paddington  (1866). 

"  The  street  sweepings  of  mud  collected  by  the  scavengers 
are  stored  in  enormous  quantities  in  the  middle  of  the  parish 
in  a  closely  inhabited  neighbourhood.  Here  it  is  allowed 
to  decompose,  &c.  If  it  were  intended  to  contrive  an 
arrangement  for  developing  malaria  in  the  midst  of  a 
town  population  nothing  could  be  better  adapted  for  the 
purpose." 

A  few  of  them  had  soared  to  the  height  of  widening  a 


OF   LONDON  185 

street,  or  acquiring  some  small  open  space ;  in  most,  if  not 
all,  of  these  cases  receiving  financial  help  from  the  central 
authority. 

But  as  to  the  main  causes  of  the  prevailing  insanitary 
evils,  their  aversion  to  active  measures  v^as  constantly  in 
evidence;  equally  so  v^here  the  enforcement  of  the  law 
would  have  entailed  cost  on  the  owners  of  insanitary 
houses. 

In  some  matters  the  plea  of  defects  in  the  legislation 
might  have  been  justifiably  urged  by  them  ;  in  others  they 
were  often  much  hampered  by  the  dilatory  procedure  attend- 
ing proceedings  for  enforcing  the  sanitary  provisions  of  the 
Metropolitan  London  Management  Act. 

One  of  the  Medical  Officers  of  Health  gives  an  illus- 
tration : — 

"A  very  great  nuisance  was  reported  to  us.  We  visited 
it,  but  had  to  wait  a  fortnight  before  the  Vestry  met  in  order 
to  get  leave  to  apply  for  a  summons.  The  magistrate 
requires  a  week  before  hearing  the  case,  and  then  he  gives 
a  week  or  two  to  do  the  work.  So  for  a  month  or  five 
weeks  the  nuisance  may  remain." 

The  result  was  that  infectious  disease  was  given  a  long 
opportunity  to  spread  itself  unchecked  through  a  whole 
district ;  an  opportunity  which  it  freely  availed  itself  of. 

Complaints  were  also  made  by  some  of  the  Medical 
Officers  of  Health  that  in  attempts  to  enforce  the  law  against 
"  overcrowding "  the  magistrate  leant  very  much  to  the 
landlord.  This,  too,  might  have  acted  as  a  discouragement 
to  them.  What,  however,  is  certain  is,  that  the  Vestries 
and  District  Boards  were  not  attempting  to  grapple  with 
the  most  crucial  questions  of  all — the  overcrowding,  and 
the  housing. 

The  Medical  Officer  of  Health  for  Clerkenwell  pointed 
this  out,  so  far  as  his  parish  was  concerned  (1861)  : — 

"  The  principal  sanitary  improvements  during  the  last  five 
years  related  almost  exclusively  to  the  drainage,  whilst  the 
overcrowding  and  impure  state  of  the  dwellings  of  the  poor 
have  been  but  little  interfered  with." 

The  more  serious  blemish  was  pointed  out  by  Dr.  Hunter 


186      THE   SANITARY  EVOLUTION 

in  his  report  of  1865  to  the  Medical  Officer  of  the  Privy 
Council  on  the  subject  of  overcrowding,  and  the  removal  of 
persons  from  houses  about  to  be  destroyed : — 

"  There  is  no  authority  which  can  deal  with  London  in 
these  matters  as  a  whole,  and  they  are  matters  in  which 
uniform  treatment  is  quite  necessary.  The  local  authority 
which  finds  the  whole  of  its  district  overcrowded,  naturally 
hesitates  before  beginning  action  whicl^may  relieve  one 
house  only  to  overfill  the  next,  and  may  reasonably  think 
that  such  action,  unless  done  thoroughly,  not  only  through 
the  district,  but  through  the  whole  capital,  might  prove 
hurtful."* 

And  his  opinion  is  weighty.  But  the  local  authorities 
were  very  far  from  doing  what  they  might  have  done  to 
abate  many  of  the  insanitary  evils  connected  therewith. 

Dr.  William  Eendell  said  f  : — 

"We  have  had  till  now  but  one  Inspector  of  Nuisances — 
an  unwilling  man  .  .  . 

"  This  is  not  a  question  of  a  defect  in  the  law.  These 
bodies  have  the  power  of  appointing  Inspectors,  but  when 
Inspectors  are  appointed  it  brings  of  course  a  large  amount 
of  work  in  low  property,  and  expense  and  trouble  are 
incurred.  Therefore  the  easiest  way  to  avoid  it  is  not  to 
have  Inspectors  enough,  so  that  the  work  may  not  be 
found  out." 

In  fact,  the  fuller  the  information  on  the  subject  is,  the 
more  clear  it  is  that  most  of  them  did  not  want  to  move 
in  the  matter. 

The  evidence  of  witnesses,  not  under  Vestry  control, 
examined  before  the  Select  Committee  on  Metropolitan 
Local  Government  in  1866,  throws  some  light  on  this 
point. 

Mr.  James  Beale,  himself  a  vestryman,  said  : — 

"  I  have  seen  a  great  want  both  of  intelligence  and  ability 
among  vestrymen. 

"I  should  say  you  may  divide  Vestries  into  divisions — 
one-third,  as  a  rule,  are  of  the  right  class  of  men  who  ought 

*  P.P.  1866,  vols,  xxxiii.-iv. 

f  Select  Committee  on  Metropolitan  Local  Government. 


OF  LONDON  187 

to  be  returned,  and  two-thirds  are  not  of  the  class  who 
ought  to  represent  the  intelligence  or  the  property  of  the 
districts  from  which  they  are  sent. 

"  The  powers  of  Vestries  are  administered  with  too  great 
a  regard  to  economy.  Efficiency  is  always  sacrificed  to 
economy.  If  an  Act  of  Parliament  requires  them  to  do 
certain  things,  it  is  as  a  rule  avoided." 

He  attributed  the  failure  of  the  Vestries  to  the  inferior 
calibre  of  the  persons  composing  them — "they  agree  to 
resolutions,  but  do  not  carry  them  out.  The  ratepayers 
take  no  interest  in  the  elections  in  our  parish.  There  is 
a  large  number  of  the  owners  of  small  house  property  in  the 
Vestries  who  regard  with  great  disfavour  any  increase  of  the 
rates,  however  beneficial  the  increase  might  be  to  the  general 
health  of  the  district." 

But  some  witnesses  went  further.  Dr.  William  Eendell, 
who  had  been  Medical  Officer  of  Health  for  St.  George- 
the-Martyr,  said : — 

**  I  believe,  the  law  being  new  to  the  Vestry,  they  did  not 
quite  understand  the  mode  of  carrying  it  out ;  but  it  was 
partly  from  corrupt  motives,  for  on  one  occasion  one  of  the 
principal  members  of  the  Vestry,  an  owner  of  considerable 
property  in  the  parish,  called  me  aside  and  requested  me 
to  pass  over  certain  property  of  his  that  I  found  in  an 
extremely  bad  condition.  I  did  not  pass  it  over,  of  course. 
The  chairman  of  the  local  committee  was,  as  I  thought, 
appointed  as  a  positive  obstructer  of  sanitary  measures  ;  at 
all  events  he  acted  as  such.  The  obstructions  arose  from 
an  unwillingness  to  incur  expense  for  fear  of  increasing  the 
rates,  and  from  an  interest  that  the  members  of  the  Vestry 
had  in  keeping  up  the  present  state  of  things." 

Jobbery,  and  the  exercise  of  influence  to  obstruct  and 
defeat  the  law,  are  hard  to  prove,  especially  after  the  lapse 
of  years,  but  one  fact  which  stands  out  conspicuous,  and 
which  is  incontestable,  shows  how  reprehensibly  the  great 
majority  of  the  Vestries  and  District  Boards  failed  to 
administer  laws  which  in  the  interests  of  the  public  health, 
and  therefore  of  the  public  welfare,  it  was  their  duty  to 
administer.      Deliberately,  and  in  the  light  of  knowledge, 


188      THE   SANITARY   EVOLUTION 

they  would  not  make  adequate  arrangements  even  for  the 
sanitary  inspection  of  their  respective  districts! 

Thus,  in  Bethnal  Green,  in  1861,  there  was  a  population 
of  105,000  persons,  and  14,731  houses.  The  Vestry 
appointed  one  single  Inspector  of  Nuisances  to  cope  with 
the  insanitary  conditions  of  this  city  of  houses,  and  of  this 
mass  of  people.  Shoreditch,  with  a  population  of  129,364 
persons,  and  17,072  houses,  also  one  Inspector.  St.  George's, 
Hanover  Square,  with  88,100  persons  and  10,437  houses, 
one  Inspector ;  Paddington,  Bermondsey,  and  several  others, 
all  with  large  populations  and  thousands  of  houses,  one 
Inspector  each.* 

A  few  had  appointed  two  Inspectors  :  St.  Marylebone 
with  161,680  persons  and  16,357  houses,  and  Islington  with 
155,341  persons  and  20,704  houses. 

Kensington,  Lambeth,  and  Limehouse,  had  appointed 
three  Inspectors  each.  St.  Pancras  headed  the  list  with 
four,  but  its  population  was  close  upon  200,000  living  in 
close  upon  22,000  houses. 

How  could  it  be  expected  that  one  Inspector  could  within 
a  year  possibly  inspect  even  one  tithe  of  the  places  which 
it  was  his  duty  to  inspect  apart  altogether  from  other  duties 
he  ought  to  perform  ?  The  Vestries  and  District  Boards 
had  the  facts  constantly  before  their  eyes  (in  the  returns  of 
work  made  to  them  by  the  Medical  Officer  of  Health) — the 
numerous  insanitary  houses  unfit  for  human  habitation,  the 
overcrowding,  the  terrible  amount  of  sickness  and  misery, 
and  they  could  calculate  from  the  one  man's  work,  the 
number  of  houses  in  the  parish  which  were  in  a  condition 
dangerous  to  the  health  of  their  inmates,  and  to  the  public 
health  generally.  The  salary  of  an  Inspector  was  so  paltry 
that  they  had  no  excuse  on  the  ground  of  economy ;  and 
the  conclusion  is  inevitable  that  either  they  did  not  care  what 
the  sanitary  condition  of  the  people  was,  or  that  "vested 
interests  in  filth  and  dirt "  were  so  powerful  on  those  bodies 
that  filth  and  dirt  must  not  be  interfered  with  at  the  expense 
of  "  owners"  upon  whom  the  cost  of  improvement  must  fall. 

"'■  See  P.P.  1867-8,  vol.  Iviii.  Return  of  Inspectors  of  Nuisances,  &c., 
1866. 


OF  LONDON  189 

And  a  grimmer  light  is  thrown  upon  these  figures  by  the 
following  statement  of  the  Medical  Officer  of  Health  for 
Lambeth  made  in  1889,  but  referring  to  1869. 

"  The  Sanitary  Inspector  of  twenty  years  ago  (that  is  to 
say  of  1869)  was  an  unskilled  workman,  holding  that  which 
might  almost  be  regarded  as  a  sinecure  office  ;  an  official 
recruited  into  the  services  of  the  Vestry  from  the  rank  of 
ex-sailors,  ex-policemen,  or  army  pensioners.  A  knowledge 
upon  sanitary  matters  acquired  from  a  course  of  technical 
training  was  not  expected  from  him," 

The  treatment  meted  out  to  some  of  the  Medical  Officers 
of  Health  also  showed  the  hostility  of  the  Vestries  to  action. 
Numerous  are  the  passages  in  their  reports  complaining  of 
their  recommendations  being  ignored.  These  officers  were 
miserably  paid,  allowing  even  for  their  being  able  to  take 
private  practice.  The  Medical  Officer  of  Health  for 
Lambeth  was  stated  to  have  been  the  worst  paid — receiving 
only  £200  a  year  for  the  performance  of  duties  attaching  to 
an  area  of  4,000  acres  with  23,000  inhabited  houses  upon  it, 
inhabited  by  162,000  persons. 

Dr.  "W.  Farr  (of  the  Eegistrar  General's  Office)  said : — 

"  I  believe  that  in  certain  districts  in  London  the  Medical 
Officer  of  Health  is  under  all  sorts  of  restraints.  If  he  is 
active,  they  look  upon  him  with  disfavour,  and  he  is  in 
great  danger  of  dismissal."  * 

The  Vestry  of  St.  James',  Westminster  (1866),  checked 
the  zeal  of  their  Medical  Officer,  Dr.  Lankester,  whose 
salary  was  £200  a  year,  by  reducing  it  to  £150  after  a 
year  or  two  when  they  found  he  was  very  earnest  in  his 
work. 

Dr.  Eendell,  the  Medical  Officer  of  Health  for  St.  George- 
the-Martyr,  South wark,  resigned  "  in  disgust  that  he  was 
not  allowed  to  carry  out  the  duties  of  his  office." 

Once  more  the  approach  of  Asiatic  cholera — the  nemesis 
of  insanitation,  and  of  **  faineant "  local  authorities — created 
anxiety,  t 

It  had  been  widely  prevalent  in  Europe  in  1865,  and  had 

*  Select  Committee  on  Metropolitan  Local  Government,  1866. 
t  P.P.  1867,  vol.  xxxvii. 


190      THE   SANITARY  EVOLUTION 

even  shown  itself  in  England,  and  it  stirred  into  spasmodic 
and  panicky  activity  the  local  authorities  of  London. 

In  Lambeth  a  systematic  house  inspection  was  inaugu- 
rated ;  987  houses  were  examined — 735  of  them  required 
sanitary  improvements. 

In  Bethnal  Green  2,018  were  inspected — 955  required 
cleansing  and  purification. 

In  many  other  parishes  and  districts  extra  sanitary  work 
was  done.  The  disease  made  no  further  demonstration  in 
the  winter,  but  in  April,  1866,  a  case  was  reported  from 
Bristol,  then  one  from  Swansea — then  from  other  places ; 
and  in  July  the  Privy  Council  issued  Orders  in  Council 
putting  the  Disease  Prevention  Act  in  force  in  the  metro- 
politan area. 

On  July  18th,  from  Poplar,  the  first  case  in  the  metro- 
polis was  reported.  Two  days  later  an  alarming  number  of 
cases  in  parts  of  East  London. 

Kegulations  were  issued  by  the  Privy  Council  defining  and 
requiring  the  specific  services  which  local  authorities  ought 
to  render  the  public. 

Some  parishes  appointed  extra  Sanitary  Inspectors.  Thus 
in  Hackney,  where  there  had  been  but  one,  four  additional 
ones  were  appointed;  in  St.  James'  two;  in  Camber  well 
two ;  in  Lambeth  two ;  in  St.  Mary,  Newington,  five  extra 
were  appointed.  Some  of  the  work  which  was  reported 
brings  into  striking  prominence  the  extraordinary  in- 
efficiency hitherto  of  the  authorities  in  dealing  with  insani- 
tary houses  as  well  as  the  neglect  into  which  houses  had 
been  let  fall,  and  which  was  tolerated  by  those  who  were 
responsible  for  the  health  of  their  districts. 

In  Lambeth  6,935  houses  were  inspected  in  1866 ;  3,983 
improvements  were  effected. 

In  Camberwell,  5,594  houses  were  inspected ;  in  4,324 
sanitary  work  had  to  be  done. 

In  St.  Mary,  Newington  : — 

"  A  house-to-house  visitation  was  commenced  August  4th, 
and  concluded  on  November  20th,  in  which  period  the  Sub- 
Inspectors  called  at  12,919  houses. 

"A  record  was  thus  obtained  of  the  condition  of   nearly 


OF   LONDON  191 

every  house  in  the  parish.  The  house-to-house  visitation 
was  carried  out  with  but  little  real  opposition,  and  with  a 
great  deal  of  satisfaction.  .  .  .  Strict  impartiality  was  the 
rule  of  action,  and  all  classes  and  those  in  every  station 
were  alike  subject  to  inquiry." 

As  the  summer  went  on,  the  mortality  from  the  cholera 
increased — it  reached  its  acme  on  August  1st,  when  there 
were  204  deaths  from  it,  and  in  the  week  ending  August  4th 
when  the  total  of  1,053  was  reached.* 

During  the  23  weeks  of  its  prevalence  5,548  persons  died 
— of  whom  3,909  died  in  the  East  Districts  alone,  and  702 
on  the  South  side  of  the  river. 

And  by  the  end  of  the  year  it  had  gone.  That  the  mor- 
tahty  should  have  been  so  much  smaller  than  on  previous 
visitations  was  attributed  to  the  fact  that  London  was 
unquestionably  less  filthy  at  the  time  of  this  outbreak. 

"  A  comparison  of  the  mortality  with  that  of  former 
cholera  years,"  .wrote  the  Medical  Officer  of  Health  for 
St.  Giles',  demonstrates  that  sanitary  work — imperfect  as  it 
is — has  deprived  the  disease  of  much  of  its  power." 

"The  power,"  wrote  the  Medical  Officer  of  Health  for 
Fulham,  "  of  sanitary  arrangments  to  check  the  progress  of 
such  a  formidable  disease  was  clearly  evidenced." 

The  Medical  Officer  of  Health  for  Lambeth  wrote : — 

"I  believe  the  great  sanitary  improvements  effected  in 
the  parish  in  providing  proper  drainage,  abolishing  many 
miles  of  open  stinking  ditches,  and  the  removal  of  other 
nuisances,  rendered  an  outbreak  of  cholera,  such  as  experi- 
enced in  former  years,  very  improbable.  .  .  .  Moreover,  by 
the  employment  of  sanitary  arrangements  for  treating  the 
sick,  Lambeth  and  other  parts  of  the  metropolis  were  saved 
from  the  ravages  of  the  pestilence  experienced  on  former 
occasions." 

That  the  epidemic  had  been  as  disastrous  as  it  was,  was, 
however,  attributed  to  "an  illegal  and  most  culpable  act  of 
the  East  London  Water  Company.  In  contravention  of  the 
4th  Section  of  the  Metropolis  Water  Act  of  1852  that 
company  distributed  for  public  use  a  water  (and  a  most 

'•'  P.P.,  vol.  xxxvii.  p.  275. 


192      THE   SANITARY  EVOLUTION 

improper  water)  which  had  not  passed  through  its  filter 
beds ;  and  strong  evidence  was  adduced  to  show  that  the 
outbreak  was  occasioned  by  this  illegal  and  most  culpable 
act." 

One  result  of  this  epidemic  was  to  demonstrate,  at  the 
cost  of  thousands  of  lives,  that  the  system  of  private  water 
companies  supplying  the  community  with  this  necessity  of 
life  was  absolutely  opposed  to  the  interests  of  the  community. 

Dr.  Simon,  in  summing  up  his  report  (1869)  on  the  water 
supply  to  the  metropolis,  wrote  :  — 

"  I  have  been  anxious  to  show  what  enormous  risks  to 
the  public  are  implied  in  any  slovenly  administration  of 
water  supplies :  yet  as  regards  the  London  supply,  what 
imperfect  obedience  to  the  law,  and  in  some  cases  what 
flagrant  and  systematic  disobedience  was  exhibited  (at  the 
time  of  the  cholera  outbreak  in  East  London  in  1866) ;  and 
above  all  what  criminal  indifference  to  the  public  safety  was 
illustrated  by  the  proceedings  of  the  Southwark  and  Vauxhall 
Company." 

As  regarded  this  latter  company  : — 

"  Not  only  had  there  been  the  long-standing  gross  ineffi- 
ciency of  the  apparatus  of  subsidence  and  filtration,  but  the 
administrators  of  the  supply  had  from  time  to  time  dispensed 
to  a  great  extent  with  even  a  pretence  of  filtration,  and 
during  some  time  had,  worst  of  all,  either  negligently  or 
wilfully  distributed  as  part  of  their  supply  the  interdicted 
tidal  water  of  Battersea  Reach. 

"  It  seems  to  me  that  the  public  is  hitherto  very  imperfectly 
protected  against  certain  extreme  dangers  which  the  mal- 
feasance of  a  water  company  may  suddenly  bring  upon  great 
masses  of  population.  Its  colossal  power  of  life  and  death 
is  something  for  which  till  recently  there  has  been  no  pre- 
cedent in  the  history  of  the  world ;  and  such  a  power,  in 
whatever  hands  it  is  vested,  ought  most  sedulously  to  be 
guarded  against  abuse." 

Cholera  was  once  more  a  blessing  in  disguise,  though  it 
seems  hard  that  the  sacrifice  of  thousands  of  lives  should 
have  been  required  to  move  Government  and  Parliament  to 
fresh  measures  for  the  protection  of  the  people  from  it  and 


OF   LONDON  193 

the  other  deadly  diseases  which  unceasingly  worked  such 
deadly  havoc  among  them.  But  the  proof  given  by  it  was 
so  overwhelming  and  decisive  as  to  the  insufficiency  of  the 
existing  sanitary  law,  and  the  inefficiency  of  the  local 
authorities,  that  Parliament  felt  forced  to  take  action.  The 
measures  taken  were  of  such  increased  comprehensiveness 
and  stringency,  that  the  passing  of  the  Sanitary  Act  of  1866  * 
marked  another  great  step  in  the  sanitary  evolution  of 
London. 

The  Act  applied  to  England  and  Wales — and  this  time 
actually  included  the  metropolis. 

The  previous  definition  of  the  term  "nuisance"  was 
enlarged,  and  "  overcrowding  "  was  now  for  the  first  time 
declared  to  be  a  "  nuisance." 

"  Any  house  or  part  of  a  house  so  overcrowded  as  to  be 
dangerous  or  prejudicial  to  the  health  of  the  inmates  "  was 
henceforward  a  "  nuisance  "  and  punishable  as  such.  And 
it  was  further  enacted  that  "where  two  convictions  for 
overcrowding  of  a  house,  or  for  the  occupation  of  a  cellar 
as  a  separate  tenement  dwelling-place  "  should  have  taken 
place  within  three  months,  it  should  be  lawful  for  the 
magistrate  to  direct  the  closing  of  such  premises  for  such 
time  as  he  might  deem  necessary. 

Under  another  extension  of  the  term  "nuisance"  the 
industrial  classes  got  the  shadowy  boon  of  all  factories, 
workshops,  and  workplaces  (not  already  under  special  Acts), 
being  made  subject  to  the  sanitary  supervision  of  the  local 
authorities ;  and  those  authorities  were  given  power  to 
inspect  such  places  to  ascertain  if  they  were  kept  in  a  cleanly 
state,  were  properly  ventilated,  and  not  overcrowded  so  as 
to  be  dangerous  or  prejudicial  to  the  health  of  the  inmates. 

A  section  in  the  Act  aimed  at  the  inefficiency  and  inaction 
of  the  local  authorities,  and  made  it  obligatory  (no  longer 
optional)  upon  them  to  make  inspection  of  their  districts. 

"  It  shall  be  the  duty  of  the  Nuisance  Authority  to  make 

from  time  to  time,  either  by  itself  or  its  officers,  inspection 

of  the  district,  with  a  view  to  ascertain  what  nuisances  exist 

calling  for  abatement  under  the  powers  of  the  Nuisances 

*  29  and  30  Vic.  cap.  90. 

14 


194       THE   SANITARY  EVOLUTION 

Eemoval  Acts,  and  to  enforce  the  provisions  of  the  said  Acts 
in  order  to  cause  the  abatement  thereof." 

An  effort  was  also  made  to  check  the  spread  of  infectious 
disease  by  giving  the  local  authority  considerable  powers 
as  regarded  disinfection.  It  was  enacted  that  the  local 
authority  might  provide  a  proper  place  for  the  disinfection 
of  clothing  and  bedding  which  might  have  been  rendered 
liable  to  communicate  disease  to  others  ;  and  the  authority 
was  empowered  to  maintain  carriages  for  the  conveyance 
to  hospital  of  persons  suffering  under  any  infectious  or 
contagious  disease.  A  blow  was  struck  at  the  iniquitous 
but  common  practice  of  letting  a  room  where  there  had 
been  dangerous  infectious  disorder,  until  it  had  been  dis- 
infected. And  provision  was  made  for  the  establishment 
of  a  hospital  for  the  reception  of  the  sick. 

All  these  were  most  considerable  reforms,  and  would  have 
been  most  useful  had  they  been  given  effect  to  and  properly 
enforced. 

The  most  important  and  wide-reaching  provision  of  the 
Act  was  that  directed  against  overcrowding. 

The  35th  Section  enacted  that  regulations  might  be  made  by 
the  Sanitary  Authority  (in  other  words,  the  Vestry  or  District 
Board)  for  fixing  the  number  of  persons  who  might  occupy 
a  house,  or  part  of  a  house,  let  in  lodgings,  or  occupied  by 
members  of  more  than  one  family.  Houses  so  let  were  to 
be  registered  by  the  Vestry.  The  regulations  could  fix  a 
certain  number  of  cubic  feet  of  air  space  which  should  be 
available  for  each  person.  By  this  means  the  number  of 
persons  who  might  live  in  a  house,  and  in  the  rooms  of  the 
house,  could  be  limited. 

That  was  the  plan — simple  enough  in  appearance — which 
Parliament  devised  for  contending  with  the  great  evil  of 
overcrowding. 

And  then,  as  regarded  the  sanitation  of  the  houses  when 
registered,  it  enacted  that  regulations  should  contain  pro- 
visions for  their  being  put  into  and  kept  in  a  clean  and 
wholesome  state.  And  to  secure  this  being  done,  regu- 
lations were  made  for  their  inspection. 

It  was  an  original  and  comprehensive  scheme  of  reform. 


OF   LONDON  195 

It  struck  at  the  root  of  the  two  great  evils — overcrowding 
and  insanitary  dwellings ;  at  overcrowding,  by  the  limitation 
of  the  number  of  persons  inhabiting  a  house,  or  part  of  a 
house,  and  at  insanitary  dwellings  by  a  series  of  regulations 
enforcing  the  necessary  measures  for  a  decent  standard  of  sani- 
tation. But  it  was  something  far  more  than  this.  It  was  the 
declaration  of  principles  of  the  utmost  importance.  It  was 
a  declaration  of  the  principle  that  the  responsibility  for  the 
condition  of  the  "  houses  let  in  lodgings  "  should  be  on  the 
shoulders  of  the  "  owner  "  of  the  house.  It  was  the  declara- 
tion of  the  principle  that  the  "  owner  "  should  not  be  allowed 
to  use  his  property  to  the  detriment,  to  the  injury  of  the 
public.  It  affirmed,  so  far  as  London  lodging  or  tenement 
houses  were  concerned,  the  great  principle,  abhorred  by  so 
many  "  owners,"  that  "  property  has  its  duties  as  well  as  its 
rights." 

The  Act  was,  however,  even  more  remarkable  for  the 
recognition  it  cfontained  of  another  principle  of  vital  impor- 
tance to  the  people  of  London — the  principle  of  central 
authority  over  local  sanitary  authorities  who  neglected  their 
duties. 

Hitherto  the  local  authorities  were  practically  their  own 
masters,  and  could  with  absolute  impunity  neglect  to  put 
the  provisions  of  the  existing  health  laws  into  operation ; 
and  "  often  their  inaction  had  been  an  absolutely  inexcusable 
neglect  of  duty." 

A  power  of  appeal  against  this  inaction  was  given. 
Where  complaint  was  made  to  a  Secretary  of  State  that 
a  nuisance  authority  had  made  default  in  enforcing  the 
provisions  of  the  Nuisances  Eemoval  Acts,  he  could,  if 
satisfied  after  inquiry  that  the  authority  had  been  guilty 
of  the  alleged  default,  make  an  order  limiting  a  time 
for  the  performance  of  the  duty,  and  if  the  duty  was  not 
performed  within  that  time,  he  could  appoint  some  person 
to  perform  the  duty  and  charge  the  costs  to  the  authority. 
And  where  the  local  authority  had  made  default  in  in- 
stituting proceedings  against  some  sanitary  law  breaker, 
he  could  order  the  chief  police  officer  to  institute  them. 
These   provisions   were  a    recognition  of    the  fact,   long 


196       THE   SANITARY  EVOLUTION 

patent  to  even  the  blindest,  that  local  authorities  did  not 
do  their  duty,  and  of  the  necessity  of  devising  a  means  of 
securing  that  a  necessary  public  duty  should  be  done. 

The  fact  was  emphasised  a  few  years  later  by  the  Eoyal 
Sanitary  Commissioners,  who  pointed  out  (1871)  that — 

"  However  local  the  administration  of  affairs,  a  central 
authority  will  nevertheless  be  always  necessary  in  order  to 
keep  the  local  executive  everywhere  in  action." 

The  real  underlying  truth  now  beginning  to  be  discerned 
was  that  in  the  matter  of  health  or  disease,  London  could 
not  be  treated  in  bits,  each  governed  by  an  independent 
body,  but  must  be  regarded  as,  what  it  really  was,  one 
single  entity  or  whole. 

In  another  way  also  was  the  principle  of  central  authority 
very  clearly  affirmed.  The  Vestries  were  not  to  have  a  free 
hand  in  making  their  regulations  under  the  35th  Section. 
Any  they  made  had  to  be  approved  by  a  Secretary  of  State. 

This  was  a  considerable  limitation  of  the  freedom  of  the 
Vestries,  but  it  secured  more  or  less  uniformity  in  the  powers 
of  the  local  authorities  in  this  particular  matter. 

But  the  vigorous  administration  by  all  the  local  authorities 
of  the  laws  passed  to  secure  the  health  of  the  public,  was 
even  more  greatly  to  be  desired ;  for,  from  force  of  circum- 
stances, the  consequences — one  way  or  the  other — could  not 
be  confined  to  the  sphere  of  action  of  each  local  authority. 

The  lives  and  welfare  of  the  inhabitants  of  this  vast  city 
are  so  closely,  so  inextricably  interwoven  that,  in  matters 
affecting  the  public  health,  the  action  or  inaction  of  one 
authority  may  vitally  affect  the  health  and  the  lives,  not 
alone  of  its  neighbours,  but  even  of  the  people  of  the  city 
as  a  whole.  Disease  and  death  are  no  respecters  of 
municipal  boundaries,  and  are  not  hemmed  in  or  restrained 
by  lines  drawn  upon  maps  or  recorded  in  Acts  of 
Parhament. 

This  community  of  interest  of  the  inhabitants  of  London 
was,  however,  scarcely,  if  at  all,  recognised  by  the  genera 
public — it  was  but  seldom  the  motive  to  action  by  the  local 
authorities — but  some  of  the  Medical  Officers  of  Health 
now  and  then  referred  to  it  in  their  reports. 


OF  LONDON  197 

Thus  the  Medical  Officer  of   Health  for  Mile-End-Old 
Town  pointed  out  (1863)  that — 

"  An  untrapped  drain,  an  overcrowded  house,  an  un- 
ventilated  alley,  a  rotting  dungheap,  or  a  foul  closet,  may 
spread  disease  and  sorrow  in  an  entire  neighbourhood." 

And  the  Medical  Officer  of  Health  for  Paddington 
pointed  out  (1870-1)  that— 

"  The  danger  of  harbouring  a  contagious  disease  is  not 
confined  to  the  individual  suffering — it  is  a  matter  that 
concerns  the  community." 

And  the  Medical  Officer  of  Health  for  Whitechapel 
wrote  (1865)  :— 

"  Here  I  would  remark,  that  a  uniform  system  of 
inspection  of  all  the  houses  in  the  several  districts  in 
London  which  are  let  out  in  separate  tenements  should  be 
repeatedly  and  systematically  adopted ;  for  if  all  the 
Vestries  and  local  Boards  do  not  act  together  i'n  this 
important  matter,  hotbeds  of  epidemic  diseases  will  remain 
undiscovered  which  will  serve  as  centres  from  whence  such 
diseases  may  emanate,  and  extend  over  the  entire 
metropolis.  The  whole  population  of  London,  therefore, 
is  interested  in  the  prompt  removal  of  nuisances." 

Immediately  on  the  passing  of  the  Act  some  of  the 
Vestries  made  efforts  to  deal  with  overcrowding  under  the 
Section  which  enacted  that — 

"  Any  house  so  overcrowded  as  to  be  dangerous  or 
prejudicial  to  the  health  of  the  inmates  "  is  to  be  considered 
a  "nuisance." 

That,  however,  was  only  a  temporary  remedy,  and 
affected  only  overcrowding.  Section  35  went  to  the  root 
of  the  matter  when  it  insisted  that  in  addition  to  the 
prevention  of  overcrowding,  the  house  in  which  the  people 
lived  should  be  kept  clean  and  in  sanitary  condition. 

"  The  very  foundation  of  our  sanitary  structure,"  wrote 
the  Medical  Officer  of  Health  for  St.  George-the-Martyr, 
"  depends  upon  the  right  housing  of  the  poor." 

The  Section  35  was  promptly  put  in  force  by  a  few  of  the 
Vestries — Chelsea  and  Hackney  being  the  first  to  make 
Begulations  and  to  enforce  them. 


198       THE   SANITARY  EVOLUTION 

Under  the  Regulations,  whenever  the  Vestry  deemed  it 
desirable  to  put  them  in  force  in  respect  to  any  house 
let  in  lodgings  or  occupied  by  members  of  more  than  one 
family,  the  number  of  persons  allowed  to  live  in  that 
house  was  fixed  on  a  basis  of  300  ctJIiic  feet  of  air  for  each 
adult  for  sleeping,  or  350  for  living  and  sleeping,  and  the 
owner  had  to  reduce  the  number  of  lodgers  to  the  number 
so  fixed  on  receiving  notice  to  that  effect. 

The  Regulations  further  directed  that — 

"The  owner  of  such  house  shall  cause  the  walls  and 
ceilings  of  every  room,  and  of  the  staircase  and  passages, 
and  yards  of  such  house  to  be  well  and  sufficiently  coloured 
or  limewashed,  or  otherwise  thoroughly  cleansed  once  (at 
least)  in  every  year. 

"  He  shall  cause  every  room  and  the  passages  to  be 
ventilated. 

"  He  shall  provide  such  accommodation  for  washing,  and 
such  a  supply  of  water  for  the  use  of  the  lodgers  as  shall 
be  satisfactory  to  the  Vestry's  Officers;"  and  sundry  and 
numerous  minor  directions. 

The  Medical  Officer  of  Health  (Chelsea),  after  the  first 
year's  work,  reported  that  the  number  of  houses  in  the 
parish  inhabited  by  two  or  more  families  was  very  great, 
and  in  many  cases  their  condition  was  deplorable,  and  it 
was  found  necessary  to  embrace  whole  streets  as  well  as 
courts  and  alleys  in  the  registration. 

By  1869  the  registration  in  Chelsea  had  been  completed, 
and  in  1870  the  Medical  Officer  of  Health  wrote  :  "  I  have 
seen  no  reason  to  alter  my  opinion  of  the  beneficial  action 
of  the  measure  by  which  we  have  been  able  to  bring  under 
direct  and  constant  supervision  the  majority  of  the  houses 
occupied  by  the  poorer  classes  in  this  parish.    .    .    ." 

The  most  satisfactory  results  followed  also  in  Hackney. 

Its  Medical  Officer  of  Health  reported  in  1867  that 
nearly  5,000  houses  had  been  measured  and  examined,  and 
in  a  large  proportion  of  cases  the  numbers  of  persons 
allowed  to  inhabit  them  had  been  fixed.  And  as  to  the 
result  of  the  enforcement  of  the  Regulations,  he  wrote 
(1869)  :    "A  very  large  number  of  families  now  occupy  two 


OF   LONDON  199 

rooms  who  formerly  lived  and  slept  in  one.  The  gain  in 
health  and  morality  has  therefore  been  considerable." 

Poplar  was  another  of  the  District  Boards  which  made 
and  enforced  the  Kegulations.  The  Medical  Officer  of 
Health  for  the  north  part  of  the  District  reported  (1868) : — 

"  Extensive  improvements  have  been  already  effected, 
but  the  work  must  still  be  systematically  continued,  for 
even  when  every  house  in  the  district  has  been  put  into 
good  sanitary  state  (which  is  far  from  being  the  case  as 
yet,  it  will  be  necessary  to  maintain  a  constant  and  watch- 
ful system  of  re-inspection  to  ensure  their  being  kept  in 
order. 

"  Of  the  1,610  houses  inspected  nearly  all  required  more 
or  less  sanitary  improvement,  and  630  were  registered  as 
containing  more  than  one  family,  and  therefore  coming 
under  the  Board's  regulations  as  to  registration." 

But  if  a  few  of  the  Vestries  made  real  efforts  to  utilise 
the  Act,  others  of  them  either  made  only  a  pretence  of 
doing  so,  or  refused  altogether. 

The  reports  of  the  Medical  Officer  of  Health  for  St. 
Giles'  (1866-7)  present  a  typical  picture  of  the  attitude 
and  conduct  of  these  bodies. 

"  A  most  important  amendment  of  the  sanitary  laws 
was  made  by  the  '  Sanitary  Act,'  of  which  Section  35  gives 
precisely  the  powers  which  not  last  year  only,  but  every 
year  since  the  constitution  of  the  Board,  the  Medical  Officer 
has  demanded  for  the  efficient  discharge  of  his  functions  in 
respect  of  houses  inhabited  by  the  poorer  classes.  That 
section  has  given  to  the  local  authority  the  power  of  making 
bye-laws  for  the  regulation  of  sub-let  houses,  and  of 
enforcing  the  observance  of  its  rules  by  penalties. 

"  In  St.  Giles'  District,  it  is  this  class  of  houses  almost 
exclusively  which  need  the  supervision  of  the  sanitary 
authorities,  and  which  become  without  that  supervision 
nests  of  filth  and  disease. 

"Accordingly,  soon  after  the  passing  of  the  Sanitary  Act, 
bye-laws  were  adopted  by  the  Board,  and  sanctioned  by  the 
Secretary  of  State  for  the  regulation  of  sub -let  houses.  .  .  . 

"  The  Board  proceeded  to  inform  owners  of  all  sub-let 


200       THE   SANITARY  EVOLUTION 

houses  that  such  houses  must  be  registered  in  conformity 
with  the  Regulation.  The  intention  of  the  Board  was  to 
apply  with  all  proper  discrimination,  but  quite  universally 
and  impartially,  the  powers  vested  in  them  in  regard  to 
sub-let  houses.  .  .  .  The  systematic  application  of  these 
powers  by  the  Board  would  have  done  for  sub-let  houses 
what  the  systematic  application  of  the  police  of  their 
powers  under  other  Acts  had  done  for  common  lodging- 
houses.  Cleanliness  and  decency  would  have  been  uni- 
versally secured,  and  would  have  been  maintained  with  a 
minimum  of  inspection  by  a  fine  for  every  gross  violation 
of  the  regulations. 

"  But  against  a  system  that  should  work  thus  directly  and 
efficiently  to  the  sanitary  good  of  the  district,  the  interests 
of  numbers  of  house-owners  and  agents  were  at  once 
arrayed,  and  these  speedily  organised  an  influential  deputa- 
tion to  the  Board. 

"  The  opposite  interests,  those  of  the  families  dwelling  in 
the  close  and  miserable  rooms  of  these  sub-let  houses, 
found  no  organised  expression. 

"  The  Board  resolved  to  recall  the  notices  which  had  been 
issued  for  a  systematic  registration,  and  to  apply  their 
powers,  in  the  first  instance,  only  to  selected  instances  of 
flagrant  and  continuous  sanitary  neglect." 

And  yet  overcrowding  in  tenement-houses  in  St.  Giles' 
was  dreadful. 

Here  are  some  instances  of  it  on  the  authority  of  the 
Medical  Officer  of  Health  in  1869. 

"  These  houses  have  for  the  greater  part  a  family  in 
every  room. 

"In  King  Street         ...  there  are  254  families  in  273  rooms. 
„  Lincoln  Court      ...     ,,       ,,    164        „       „  168      „ 
„  Little  Wild  Street     „       ,,139        „       ,,182      „ 
„  Wild  Court  ...     „       „     109        „       ,,116       „    " 

In  Whitechapel  (1867),  rules  and  regulations  were 
adopted  by  the  Board. 

"Unfortunately,"  wrote  the  Medical  Officer  of  Health, 
the  Act  was  permissive,  not  compulsory. 


OF   LONDON  201 

"  I  brought  under  the  notice  of  your  Board  several  houses 
which  in  my  opinion  ought  to  be  registered. 

"...  The  Board  having  reserved  to  itself  the  power  of 
determining  as  to  the  propriety  of  causing  any  house  to  be 
placed  upon  the  register,  this  enactment,  which  was 
framed  not  only  for  the  improvement  of  the  moral  and 
physical  condition  of  the  poor,  but  for  the  benefit  of  the 
whole  community,  has  been  carried  into  effect  in  only  one 
instance." 

In  Islington,  draft  Eegulations  were  prepared,  but  it 
does  not  appear  that  they  were  ever  adopted. 

In  Paddington,  the  Vestry  decided  against  putting  the 
Regulations  in  force. 

In  Westminster,  "such  obstacles  were  offered  by  the 
holders  of  small  property"  to  the  Regulations  that  they 
were  not  enforced. 

And  on  the  south  side  of  the  river  the  story  was  very 
much  the  same. 

The  sting  of  the  enactment  was  that  it  put  house-owners 
to  the  expense  of  putting  the  house  into,  and  maintaining 
it  in,  habitable  and  sanitary  repair,  and  to  the  expense  of 
annually  painting  or  limewashing  it ;  the  provision  of 
proper  ventilation — of  sanitary  and  washing  accommoda- 
tion, and  for  a  supply  of  water :  in  fact,  of  doing  to  the 
houses  that  which  was  essential  for  the  health  of  their 
occupants.  The  Regulations  simplified  and  shortened,  and 
made  more  effective,  the  processes  for  enforcing  penalties 
for  breaches  of  the  sanitary  laws — all  which  was  of  course 
unpalatable  to  the  sanitary  law-breaker. 

And  so  the  great  bulk  of  the  local  authorities  would  have 
nothing  to  do  with  this  35th  Section  or  its  Regulations. 

The  law  was  not  compulsory,  but  permissive — and  they 
availed  themselves  of  that  permission. 

But  the  Vestries  and  District  Boards  who  took  no  action, 
and  allowed  the  principal  provision  of  the  Act  to  be  a  dead 
letter,  proved  by  their  conduct  their  deliberate  determination 
not  to  impose  what  was  a  just  expense  upon  the  "  owners," 
even  though  the  not  doing  so  should  result  in  a  frightful 
annual  sacrifice  of  human  life,  and  in  an  untold  amount  of 


202       THE   SANITARY   EVOLUTION 

human  suffering   and  misery,  and  a  long  train  of  physical 
and  moral  evils  of  the  very  worst  character. 

That  the  Act  had  been  successfully  administered  by  some 
two  or  three  Vestries  proved  that  it  was  quite  a  workable 
measure — so  no  excuse  could  be  raised  on  that  ground  by 
the  recalcitrant  Vestries. 

Their  attitude  is  an  irrefutable  proof  of  their  selfish  in- 
difference to  human  suffering  where  it  clashed  with  the 
"  rights  of  property,"  and  of  their  incapacity  for  the  position 
they  held  as  guardians  and  trustees  of  the  people. 

"The  slaughter-houses  and  cow-houses  are  ordered  to  be 
whited  at  least  twice  a  year,  while  the  houses  of  the  poor 
are  allowed  to  remain  for  years  without  this  important 
means  of  purification." 

The  problem  of  overcrowding  was,  undoubtedly,  a  most 
difficult  one — and  some  of  the  Medical  Officers  of  Health 
were  realising  how  difficult  it  was  to  treat  with  any  hope  of 
success. 

Thus  the  Medical  Officer  of  Health  for  Bethnal  Green 
set  forth  the  state  of  his  parish  in  1867  : — 

"  The  population  of  Bethnal  Green  has  now  nearly 
reached  120,000,  and  we  have  no  more  house  room  than 
heretofore.  The  consequence  is  that  overcrowding  is  as 
great  as  ever ;  and  although  the  Public  Health  Act  of  1866 
was  framed  to  obviate  this  great  evil,  it  is  practically  un 
workable,  owing  mainly  to  high  rents  (which  in  some  cases 
have  increased  as  much  as  50  per  cent.),  dearness  of  pro- 
visions, scarcity  of  employment,  and  the  imposition  of  taxes 
for  the  first  time  upon  the  tenant ;  and  many  families  who 
could  ordinarily  afford  to  occupy  a  whole  house  have  been 
obliged  to  let  lodgings ;  others  who  have  occupied  two 
rooms  have  been  obliged  to  put  up  with  one ;  and  where 
overcrowding  has  existed,  and  the  law  enforced,  the  people 
have  merely  removed  to  other  houses  and  thus  perpetuated 
the  evil  which  it  was  the  intention  of  the  Legislature  to 
obviate." 

But  doing  nothing  while  overcrowding  got  worse  was  not 
likely  to  make  the  problem  less  difficult. 

Except,  then,  in  a  few  parishes  overcrowding  was  permitted 


OF  LONDON  203 

to  pursue  its  own  course  unchecked,  to  the  great  benefit  of 
the  various  "  owners,"  and  to  the  great  misery  of  great 
masses  of  the  people,  and  the  evil  extended  itself  year  by 
year  and  became  steadily  acuter. 

And  this,  too,  after  Parliament  had  placed  in  the  hands 
of  the  local  authorities  large  powers  specially  designed  for 
coping  with  an  evil  which  was  eating  into  the  very  vitals  of 
the  community. 

So  rapid  was  the  increase  of  population  that  the  increase 
in  the  number  of  houses  did  little  to  mitigate  the  over- 
crowding ;  nor  was  the  construction  of  the  majority  of  the 
houses  conducive  to  the  health  of  those  who  went  to  inhabit 
them. 

London  ground  was  being  rapidly  covered  with  buildings. 

"  Many  large  tracts  of  our  formerly  open  spaces  have 
been  rapidly  covered,  nay  densely  packed  with  buildings. 

"  The  operations  of  the  builder  have  annihilated  acres  of 
garden  ground  by  the  hundred." 

"  Little  garden  plots,  green  spots,  open  spaces,  were  being 
absorbed  and  swallowed  up  one  after  another,  and  covered 
with  houses.  .  .  . 

"Apparently  each  builder  does  that  which  seems  good  in 
his  own  eyes." 

Paddington  afforded  an  interesting  example  of  this 
growth.  A  space  near  Eanelagh  Eoad,  about  25  acres, 
had  almost  all  been  built  upon  within  the  last  15-20  years. 
The  streets  were  40  feet  wide.  Here  were  900  houses 
packed  with  12,000  people,  or  469  persons  to  the  acre 
(1871).  And  another  example  near  Paddington  Eoad — 
where  276  houses  had  been  built,  and  the  population  was 
493  to  the  acre  ;  showing 

"  A  high  density  of  population  such  as  ought  not  to  have 
been  tolerated  under  a  wise  municipal  policy." 

The  rapidity  of  the  increase  was  extraordinary.  In 
Lambeth  in  the  year  1866-7,  1,078  houses  were  erected. 
In  Battersea  in  1868-9,  1,530  houses  were  erected — a  large 
number  of  which  were  filled  with  people  within  a  few  days 
or  weeks  of  their  completion. 

The  newness  of  a  house,  however,  gave  no  guarantee  of 


204       THE   SANITARY  EVOLUTION 

its  sanitary  fitness,  and  a  great  proportion  of  them  were  of 
the  most  objectionable  and  insanitary  description.  All  the 
art  and  craft  of  the  speculating  builder  was  too  often 
exercised  to  evade  such  legal  provisions  as  there  were  for 
the  protection  of  the  public,  and  to  get  the  largest  profits 
he  could  for  the  worst  constructed  house,  and  the  result 
was  that  very  many  of  the  new  houses  were  little  better 
than  the  worst  of  the  old  ones. 

Unfortunately,  the  law  was  very  ineffective  to  prevent 
this.  As  was  pointed  out  by  the  Medical  Officer  of 
Health  for  Fulham  (1871),  the  sanitary  legislation  for 
the  metropolis  had  never  been  accompanied  by  an  amalga- 
mation of  the  Building  Act  with  the  general  sanitary  statutes. 

"  The  Building  Act  still  works  an  independent  course, 
and  it  is  not  too  much  to  say  of  it  that,  whilst  its  provisions 
deal  strictly  with  the  strength  and  quality  of  bricks  and 
mortar,  they  utterly  fail  to  ensure  for  us  dwellings,  especially 
for  the  working  classes,  which  have  the  least  pretensions  to 
perfection  in  sanitary  conditions.  A  large  number  of  habita- 
tions of  this  description  have  been  completed  and  occupied 
during  the  last  few  years  both  in  Fulham  and  Hammer- 
smith, and  take  the  place  of  our  former  fever  dens  in 
fostering  disease.  Unfortunately  the  Sanitary  Authorities 
see  these  wretched  structures  raised  before  their  eyes,  and 
have  no  power  to  check  their  progress.  It  is  truly  to  be 
hoped  that  this  anomaly  will  soon  be  remedied." 

Such  as  the  houses  were,  however,  they  were  quickly  in- 
habited. The  Medical  Officer  of  Health  for  Paddington  gives 
a  graphic  description  of  the  result  in  his  parish  (1871)  : — 

"  There  has  been  for  some  years  a  large  influx  of  persons, 
mostly  of  the  working  class,  coming  from  over-crowded  and 
unwholesome  houses  of  other  districts  of  the  metropolis. 
Large  numbers  of  the  newly-built  houses  being  let  out  in 
tenements  and  single  rooms  attract  a  class  of  persons 
barely  able  to  obtain  necessaries  of  life  ;  amongst  these  are 
not  a  few  of  intemperate  and  demoralised  habits,  with 
feeble  vital  stamina,  consequently  there  is,  and  will  be,  a 
larger  proportion  of  sickness,  chronic  pauperism,  and  death 
in  the  parish  than  formerly. 


OF  LONDON  205 

"  This  deterioration  of  race  has  for  some  time  been  recog- 
nised by  Medical  Officers  of  Health. 

"It  must  be  remembered  that  most  of  the  working  people 
are  fixed  to  the  spot,  and  cannot  get  a  periodical  change  of 
climate,  or  remove  from  a  locality  in  the  event  of  impending 
ill-health,  or  of  contagious  disease  breaking  out  near  them. 

"It  is  of  no  avail  to  lament  over  the  laws  of  absolute 
necessity,  but  all  parties  should  combine  in  a  demand  for 
that  even-handed  justice  to  the  working  ranks  which,  though 
it  may  not  interfere  with  a  stern  destiny  which  confines 
them  to  a  life  of  toil,  is  bound  at  least  to  provide  that 
the  theatre  of  that  toil  shall  be  free  from  the  pollutions  that 
endanger  the  functions  of  life,  and  uncontaminated  by  con- 
tagion and  death. 

"  I  must  say  it  is  a  scandal  to  the  present  constitution  of 
society  that  the  reverse  of  this  continues  from  year  to  year 
in  spite  of  all  suggestions  of  Medical  Officers  of  Health,  and 
the  warnings  of  experience.  In  vain  does  one  plague  after 
another  ravage  the  family  of  industrial  orders,  and  like 
doomed  men  they  stand  amidst  the  harvest  of  death 
looking  earnestly,  but  in  vain,  to  the  Legislature  for 
that  help  which  no  other  power  can  give.  Parents, 
children,  and  friends,  drop  around  them,  the  victims  of  a 
poisoned  atmosphere ;  while  they  hear  and  feel  successive 
warnings,  the  irrevocable  law  of  necessity  fixes  them  to  the 
spot,  and  they  cannot  flee  from  the  danger." 

The  Central  Authority,  the  Metropolitan  Board  of  Works, 
had,  during  the  decade,  been  doing  much  useful  work 
affecting  the  public  health,  of  London,  in  addition  to  its 
great  work,  the  great  system  of  main  drainage. 

It  had  undertaken  and  had  completed  several  large  street 
improvements  by  1870,  intended  to  provide  new  and  im- 
proved means  of  access  from  one  part  of  the  town  to 
another. 

"  The  Board  had  to  supply  the  deficiencies  resulting  from 
centuries  of  neglect :  it  had  also  to  keep  pace  as  well  as 
it  could  with  the  wants  of  the  ever-increasing  population, 
and  the  needs  of  a  traffic  which  grew  relatively  even  more 


206        THE   SANITARY  EVOLUTION 

than  the  population,"  and  each  work  contributed  to  the 
improvement  of  the  public  health,  by  facilitating  and  in- 
creasing the  circulation  of  air  in  crowded  neighbourhoods. 

Another  matter,  important  also  in  reference  to  the  health 
of  the  metropolis,  had  also  occupied  their  attention,  namely, 
the  acquisition  or  preservation  of  open  spaces  in  London 
for  public  recreation  and  enjoyment. 

A  piece  of  land,  of  over  100  acres  in  extent,  was  acquired 
and  opened  to  the  public  as  Finsbury  Park  in  1869 ;  and  on 
the  south  side  of  the  river,  in  Kotherhithe,  some  63  acres  of 
land  were  purchased  in  1864,  and  converted  into  a  public 
park  a  few  years  later. 

On  the  outskirts  of  London  there  were  a  number  of  com- 
mons and  other  tracts  of  open  ground  available  for  public 
resort,  to  which  the  public  had  no  legal  rights,  and  which 
were  rapidly  being  absorbed  by  railway  companies  or 
builders.  London  was  thus  in  danger  of  losing  open  spaces 
which  were  urgently  required  in  the  interests  of  the  public 
health. 

Parliament,  after  an  inquiry  by  Select  Committee,  passed 
the  "Metropolitan  Commons  Act"*  in  1866,  which  pre- 
scribed a  mode  of  procedure  under  which  the  commons  in 
the  neighbourhood  of  London  could  be  permanently  procured 
for  the  people  of  London,  and  the  Metropolitan  Board  set  to 
work  to  procure  them.  The  acquisition  of  Hampstead 
Heath  was  happily  arranged  in  1870. 

Another  great  work  was  also  undertaken  by  the  Central 
Authority — namely,  the  embankment  of  the  Tharnes. 

The  offensive  state  of  the  river  had  been  greatly  enhanced 
by  the  large  areas  left  dry  at  low  water  on  which  sewage 
matter  collected  and  putrefied ;  and  the  only  way  of  re- 
moving this  cause  of  mischief  was  by  confining  the  current 
within  a  narrower  channel. 

Parliament  passed  an  Act  in  1863,  entrusting  its  execution 
to  the  Metropolitan  Board,  and  the  work  was  soon  after 
commenced. 

Thus  in  these  matters,  all  of  which  were  closely  associated 
with  the  public  health,  the  sanitary  evolution  of  London  was 
*  29  and  30  Vic.  cap.  122. 


OF  LONDON  207 

progressing,  and  the  Board  was  giving  visible  demonstra- 
tion of  the  necessity  of  that  which  had  so  long  been  denied 
to  London — namely,  a  central  governing  authority  to  deal 
with  matters  affecting  London  as  a  whole. 

The  Board,  in  their  report  for  1865-6,  stated  they  were : 
"  Deeply  sensible  of  what  remained  to  be  done  to  remedy 
the  neglect  of  past  ages,  and  to  render  the  metropolis 
worthy  of  its  position  as  the  chief  city  of  the  Empire ;  "  but 
they  were  hampered  by  the  want  of  means  to  enable  them  to 
carry  out  desired  improvements. 

"  It  cannot  be  questioned,"  they  wrote,  "  that  direct  taxa- 
tion now  falls  very  heavily  upon  the  occupiers  of  property 
in  the  metropolis.  ...  It  appears  to  the  Board  that  the 
most  equitable  and  practicable  mode  of  raising  the  necessary 
funds  would  be  by  imposing  a  portion  of  the  burden  on  the 
owners  of  property.  It  cannot  be  denied  that  the  interest 
of  the  latter  in  metropolitan  improvements  is  much  greater 
than  that  of  teinporary  occupiers,  and  yet  at  the  present 
time,  the  occupiers  of  property  in  the  metropolis  bear  almost 
the  whole  cost  of  the  improvements  effected  by  the  Board. 
It  is  hoped  that  the  representations  made  by  the  Board  will 
satisfy  the  Legislature  of  the  injustice  of  the  present  state 
of  things,  and  lead  to   some   equitable  remedy." 

The  visitation  of  cholera  was  doubtless  in  the  main 
accountable  for  the  access  of  energy  displayed  by  Parliament 
about  this  period  in  matters  affecting  the  public  health. 

In  the  same  session  that  the  Sanitary  Act  was  passed,  a 
measure  of  considerable  importance  to  the  consumers  of 
water  in  London  was  passed,  though  many  years  would 
elapse  before  its  effect  would  be  appreciable.  This  was  "  The 
Thames  Purification  Act." 

"  Whereas  .  .  ,  the  sewage  of  towns  situate  on  the  river 
Thames  above  the  metropolis  is  carried  into  the  river,  and 
thereby  its  waters  are  polluted  and  the  health  and  comfort 
of  the  inhabitants  of  the  valley  of  the  river  below  those 
towns  of  the  metropolis  are  affected,"  powers  were  given  for 
the  diversion  therefrom  of  the  sewage  of  Oxford,  Beading, 
Kingston,  Eichmond,  &c.,  &c.,  "whose  cloacal  contributions 
to  the  stream  were  distributed  to  masses  of  the  people  of 


208       THE   SANITARY  EVOLUTION 

London."     No  less  than  56  towns,  it  was  said,  cast  their 
impurities  into  the  river. 

And  in  the  following  year  the  scope  of  the  Thames  Con- 
servancy Board  was  extended  and  very  stringent  care 
exercised  to  prevent  unnecessary  pollution  of  the  river.  And 
in  1868  the  river  Lea,  another  of  the  water  suppliers,  was 
placed  under  a   Conservancy  Board. 

In  1867  an  Act  of  far-reaching  consequence  was  passed, 
making  vaccination  compulsory.  In  1836  an  Act  *  dealing 
with  this  matter  laid  it  down  that  the  parent  of  a  child, 
or  the  occupier  of  the  house  in  which  a  child  was  born, 
might,  within  40  days,  give  notice  to  the  Eegistrar  as  to  the 
vaccination  of  the  child.  There  was  no  punishment  for  the 
neglect  to  do  so,  and  no  penalty  for  refusal  to  give  the 
Registrar  the  information. 

This  new  Act,  which  came  into  operation  on  the  1st 
of  January,  1868,  enacted  that — 

"  Every  child  shall  be  vaccinated  within  three  months  of 
its  birth." 

The  Act  was  to  be  administered  by  the  Poor  Law  Autho- 
rities; and  Boards  of  Guardians  might  appoint  public 
vaccinators  and  establish  vaccination  stations. 

In  1867,  also,  another  Act  of  very  great  consequence  was 
passed  dealing  with  one  important  element  in  the  sanitary 
evolution  of  London,  to  which  no  reference  has  yet  been 
made,  namely,  the  provision  of  hospitals  for  the  isolation 
of  infectious  or  contagious  disease,  for  the  prevention  of 
mortality,  and  for  the  speedy  restoration  of  the  sick  to 
health. 

There  is,  indeed,  no  part  of  sanitary  work  requiring  more 
constant  attention  than  the  protection  of  the  community 
from  the  spread  of  infectious  diseases,  and  this  is  best 
secured  by  hospitals  affording  proper  provision  for  isolation 
and  treatment  of  infectious  cases. 

Next  to  the  adoption  of  proper  measures  for  the  preven- 
tion of  disease,  a  suitable  provision  for  the  speedy  restoration 
of  the  sick  to  health  is  obviously  of  the  greatest  importance 
to  the  community. 

*  6  and  7  Wm.  IV.  cap.  86. 


OF  LONDON  209 

So  far  as  the  absolutely  destitute  were  concerned,  all  had, 
by  the  law  of  England,  subject  to  certain  conditions,  right 
to  food,  shelter,  and  medical  attendance ;  and  they  accord- 
ingly received  gratuitous  medical  treatment  at  workhouses, 
or  dispensaries,  and  in  sick  wards. 

Indeed,  any  person  suffering  from  an  infectious  disease 
might,  if  willing  to  become  a  pauper,  take  advantage  of  such 
provision  as  was  made  by  the  Guardians  of  the  Poor,  the 
provision  being  imperfectly  isolated  wards  and  buildings 
attached  to  the  several  Metropolitan  Workhouses  and 
Infirmaries.  Those  not  so  willing  were  compelled  to  remain 
at  home,  a  source  of  danger  to  those  around  them,  and  if 
poor,  with  insufficient  medical  attendance  and  nourishment. 

For  a  long  time  the  only  special  provision  for  certain 
infectious  diseases  for  the  whole  of  London  was  that  in  the 
London  Fever,  and  the  London  Smallpox  Hospitals,  both 
of  which  were  maintained  by  private  charity. 

Happily,  where  neither  the  State  nor  the  local  authorities 
did  anything,  charity  stepped  in,  and  on  a  larger  scale  sup- 
plied an  inevitable  want ;  and  medical  charities  grew  up  to 
give  relief  in  time  of  sickness  to  those  of  the  working  classes 
of  society  who  were  unable  to  provide  for  themselves,  but 
this  was  mostly  for  non-infectious  or  non-contagious 
diseases. 

None  of  the  Vestries  or  District  Boards  gave  any  sign  of 
making  provision  for  those  who  were  not  paupers,  although 
the  duty  of  giving  opportunity  for  isolation  of  infectious 
persons  whose  dieases  made  them  dangerous  to  others,  be 
they  paupers  or  not,  devolved  upon  them  under  the 
Sanitary  Act  of  1866  as  the  Sanitary  Authorities  concerned 
in  the  prevention  of  the  extension  of  disease. 

"  Indeed  it  must  be  admitted,"  wrote  the  Medical  Officer 
of  Health  for  Chelsea  some  years  later,  "  that  the  Vestries 
never  recognised  their  responsibilities  (as  sanitary  authori- 
ties) from  the  very  first." 

Grievous  scandals  having  occurred  in  the  treatment  of  the 
sick  in  many  of  the  metropolitan  workhouses,  the  Govern- 
ment of  1867  decided  on  a  great  measure  of  reform.  Once 
more   the    necessity    of    central    government    had    to    be 

15 


210       THE   SANITARY  EVOLUTION 

recognised,  and  by  the  Metropolitan  Poor  Act  of  1867  a 
Board — elected  by  the  Poor  Law  Guardians,  who  them- 
selves were  elected  bodies — was  created  as  a  central 
authority  to  relieve  Poor  Law  Guardians  of  the  care  of  and 
treatment  of  paupers  suffering  from  fever  and  smallpox  who 
could  not  be  properly  treated  in  workhouses,  and  to  provide 
for  their  treatment  and  accommodation,  as  well  as  that  of 
the  harmless  insane  of  the  metropolis. 

The  Board  was  entitled  the  Metropolitan  Asylums  Board, 
and  consisted  of  73  members ;  55  of  whom  were  elected  by 
the  various  Boards  of  Guardians  in  London,  and  the 
remaining  18  being  nominated  by  the   Home   Secretary, 

In  the  early  stage  of  its  existence  its  duties  were  strictly 
confined  to  those  of  the  pauper  class  suffering  from  these 
diseases.*'  Admission  to  its  hospitals  could  be  obtained  only 
on  orders  issued  by  the  relieving  officers,  and  those  admitted 
became,  if  they  were  not  so  already,  "pauperised"  by 
admission  and  ipso  facto  paupers  ;  but  later  its  scope  was 
extended,  and  it  became  the  Hospital  Authority  for 
infectious  diseases  in  London,  and  afforded  another  illustra- 
tion of  the  necessity  for  having  one  central  authority  for 
matters  relating  to  the  public  health  of  the  inhabitants  of 
the  metropolis. 

The  erection  of  hospitals  was  at  once  commenced.  The 
first  was  opened  in  January,  1870,  and  the  isolated  treat- 
ment of  many  cases  of  infectious  disease  was  of  great 
benefit  to  the  community. 

In  1867,  too.  Parliament  again  dealt  with  the  condition 
of  the  workers  in  Factories  and  Workshops.  The  legisla- 
tion dealt  with  the  kingdom  as  a  whole,  but  inasmuch  as 
London  was  so  great  a  manufacturing  city,  it  affected  also 
the  masses  of  the  working  population  of  the  metropolis. 

The  Commissioners  on  Children's  Employment,  who  had 
been  at  work  since  1862,  had  completed  their  inquiry,  and 
made  many  recommendations,  and  in  the  concluding  part  of 
their  fifth  report,  dated  1866,  they  wrote  : — 

"We  heartily  trust  that  we  may  have  thus,  in  some 
degree,  contributed  to  bring  the  time  nearer  when  so  many 
*  See  Report  of  the  Metropolitan  Asylums  Board  for  1886-7. 


OF   LONDON  211 

hundreds  of  thousands  of  your  Majesty's  poorer  subjects  of 
the  working  classes — especially  the  very  young  and  those  of 
the  tenderer  sex — will  be  relieved  from  the  totally  unne- 
cessary burden  and  oppression  of  overtime,  and  night  work  ; 
will  be  confined  to  the  reasonable  and  natural  limits  of  the 
factory  hours  .  .  .  will  perform  their  daily  labour  under 
more  favourable  sanitary  conditions,  breathing  purer  air, 
amid  greater  cleanliness,  and  protected  against  causes 
specially  injurious  to  health  and  tending  to  depress  their 
vigour  and   shorten  their   lives." 

Only  in  1867  was  factory  legislation  at  last  of  an 
approximately  general  character. 

"  Fully  two-thirds  of  the  century  in  which  England's 
industrial  supremacy  swept  to  its  climax  was  allowed  to 
pass  before  even  an  attempt  was  made  to  regulate  on  sound 
general  principles  the  recognised  and  inevitable  workings  of 
unchecked  individualism  in  the  industrial  field."  * 

The  Act  of  1867  t  made  better  provision  for  regulating 
the  hours  during  which  children,  young  persons,  and 
women,  were  to  be  permitted  to  labour  in  any  manufactur- 
ing process  conducted  in  an  establishment  where  fifty  or 
more  persons  are  employed — the  regulation  being  in  the 
direction  of  less  onerous  conditions  of  labour. 

And  by  another  Act  passed  at  the  same  time — '*  The 
Workshop  Kegulation  Act,  1867,"  I  the  protection  afforded 
to  workers  in  factories  was  extended  to  workers  in  smaller 
establishments,  so  far  as  regarded  the  regulations  relating  to 
the  hours  of  labour  to  children,  young  persons,  and  women. 

"  Workshop  "  was  defined  as — 

* '  Any  room  or  place  whatever  (not  a  factory  or  bake- 
house) in  which  any  handicraft  is  carried  on  by  any  child, 
young  person,  or  woman,  and  to  which  the  person  employ- 
ing them  had  a  right  of  access  and  control." 

No  child  under  8  was  to  be  employed,  and  none  between 
8  and  13  was  to  be  employed  more  than  six  and  a  half 
hours  a  day — and  sundry  other  directions.  The  workshops, 
moreover,  were  to  be  kept  in  a  proper  sanitary  state,  and 

*  See  the  Edinburgh  Review,  January,  1903. 

t  30  and  31  Vic.  cap.  103.  %  30  and  31  Vic.  cap.  146. 


212        THE   SANITARY  EVOLUTION 

the  administration  of  the  sanitary  provisions  of  the  Act  was 
placed  in  the  hands  of  the  local  authorities — the  Home 
Office  Inspectors  having  concurrent  jurisdiction. 

These  Acts  had  a  two-fold  effect  in  the  direction  of 
sanitary  evolution  :  the  improvement  of  the  sanitary  condi- 
tions under  which  the  people  worked,  and  the  prohibition  of 
work  entailing  consequences  detrimental  to  the  physical 
well-being  of  the  workers. 

Their   effect   would  have  been  of  the  greatest  value  in 

London  had  they  been  vigorously  enforced.     Some  of  the 

Medical  Officers  of  Health  endeavoured  to  enforce  the  Act. 

Thus  the  Medical  Officer  of  Health  for  the  Strand  reported 

to  his  employers  (1868-9) : — 

"During  the  past  year  the  provisions  of  the  "Workshops 
Regulation  Act,  1867,  have,  so  far  as  practicable,  been 
enforced." 

And  the  Medical  Officer  of  Health  for  St.  George,  Hanover 
Square,  wrote  (1870-1)  :— 

"  I  have  endeavoured  to  carry  out  the  "Workshops  Act  by 
the  abatement  of  overcrowding,  by  enforcing  due  ventila- 
tion, and  closing  at  the  legal  time,  so  as  to  prevent  the 
scandal  and  suffering  of  dressmakers  still  being  compelled 
to  toil  for  16  hours." 

But  the  silence  of  others  on  the  subject  told  its  own  tale 
and  pointed  its  own  moral.  Active  inspection  was  essential 
for  success,  but  inspection  was  not  encouraged  by  the 
Vestries  or  District  Boards,  and  the  intentions  of  the 
Legislature  were  once  more  frustrated  by  the  failure  of 
the  local  authorities  to  do  their  duty. 

After  four  years  Parliament  took  the  duty  away  from 
their  incapable  hands  and  transferred  it  to  the  Factory 
Department  of  the  Home  Office. 

One  other  Act  of  importance  Parliament  also  passed 
about  this  time,  "  The  Artizans'  and  Labourers'  Dwellings 
Act,  1868." 

Sanitary  legislation  has  as  yet  done  little  more  for  old 
property,  and  the  whole  of  Central  London  was  old  pro- 
perty, than  to  improve  the  drainage,  and  occasionally  to 
cleanse  or  whitewash  some  small  fraction  of  it ;  and  there 


OF  LONDON  213 

remained  the  fact  that  numerous  districts  or  conglomera- 
tions of  houses  were  unreformable,  and  when  the  most  was 
done  to  them  that  could  be  done  under  the  law  were  still 
unfit  for  human  habitation. 

In  the  previous  year  a  Bill  had  been  introduced  into 
Parliament  by  Mr.  Torrens : — 

"  The  objects  of  which  were,  first,  to  provide  means  for 
taking  down  or  improving  dwellings  occupied  by  working 
men  which  were  unfit  for  human  habitation ;  and  secondly, 
for  the  building  and  maintenance  of  better  dwellings  instead. 
But  the  Act  of  1868  retained  the  former  only;  the  latter 
having  been  struck  out  of  the  Bill  during  its  progress 
through  Parliament. 

"  The  intention  of  Parliament  was  to  provide  the  means 
whereby  local  authorities  might  secure  the  effectual  repair 
of  dilapidated  dwellings,  or,  when  necessary,  their  gradual 
reconstruction."  * 

The  Act  conferred  powers  far  exceeding  any  heretofore 
possessed  by  the  local  authority  for  effectually  dealing  with 
houses  unfit  for  human  habitation. 

"  On  the  report  of  the  Medical  Officer  of  Health  that  any 
inhabited  building  was  in  a  condition  dangerous  to  health, 
so  as  to  be  unfit  for  human  habitation,  the  Vestry,  after 
certain  inquiries,  &c.,  was  to  have  power  to  order  the  owner 
to  remove  the  premises,  and,  in  default,  themselves  to 
remove  them ;  or  they  might  order  the  owner  to  execute 
the  necessary  structural  alterations,  and  in  default,  might 
either  shut  up  or  pull  down  the  premises,  or  themselves 
execute  the  necessary  work  at  the  owner's  expense."  + 

The  Act  proceeded  upon  the  principle  that  the  responsibility 
of  maintaining  his  houses  in  proper  condition  falls  upon  the 
owner,  and  that  if  he  failed  in  his  duty  the  law  is  justified 
in  stepping  in  and  compelling  him  to  perform  it.  It  further 
assumed  that  houses  unfit  for  human  habitation  ought  not  to 
be  used  as  dwellings,  but  ought,  in  the  interests  of  the  public, 
to  be  closed,  and  demolished,  and  to  be  subsequently  rebuilt. 

*  Report  of  Select  Committee  on  the  working  of  the  Artizans'  and 
Labourers'  Dwellings  Improvement  Act,  1882,  p.  iii. 
f  Ibid.,  p.  iv. 


214       THE   SANITARY  EVOLUTION 

Use  began  to  be  made  of  the  Act  soon  after  its  passing, 
but  the  operations  under  it  can  be  more  conveniently 
described  in  the  following  chapter. 

The  energy  of  Parliament  had  a  most  beneficial  effect, 
and  many  of  the  Medical  Officers  of  Health  bore  testimony 
to  the  encouraging  sanitary  progress  which  was  being  made. 

Thus  the  Medical  Officer  of  Health  for  Fulham  wrote 
(1868)  :— 

"  Our  district  is  gradually  and  most  manifestly  improving 
in  all  those  great  features  of  hygiene  which  are  truly 
essential  where  such  masses  of  people  congregate  together." 

And  the  Medical  Officer  of  Health  for  St.  Martin-in-the- 
Fields,  who  wrote  in  1864  that : — 

"  The  spread  of  sanitary  knowledge  is  slow  " — 
Wrote  in  1868  :— 

"  Upon  the  whole,  I  am  of  opinion  that  all  classes,  even 
the  very  poorest,  are  much  more  alive  to  their  own  interest 
in  supporting  measures  for  the  maintenance  of  health." 

The  Medical  Officer  of  Health  for  St.  Mary,  Newington, 
wrote  (1871):— 

"  The  knowledge  of  a  compulsory  power,  as  well  as  the 
spread  of  sanitary  knowledge,  and  a  greater  appreciation  of 
it,  has  led  to  a  vast  amount  of  sanitary  improvement. 

"  I  can  but  express  a  strong  conviction  that  the  sanitary 
measures  carried  out  are  working  slowly  but  steadily  a  vast 
improvement  in  both  the  morale  and  physique  of  the  inhabi- 
tants of  this  metropolis  in  particular  ...  a  great  work  is 
progressing,  the  effects  of  which  will  be  seen  more  and 
more  as  years  roll  on,  and  will  be  recognised  in  the  greater 
comfort,  better  health,  and  augmented  self-respect  of  the 
people,  and  in  an  increased  and  increasing  improvement  in 
the  homes  of  those  on  whose  strength  or  weakness  must 
depend  in  no  slight  degree  the  position  for  better  or  worse 
of  the  English  nation." 

The  Medical  Officer  of  Health  for  St.  George  the  Martyr, 
in  his  report  for  1870,  makes  a  retrospect  of  fifteen  years  : — 

"When  the  Vestries  began  (1856)  their  mighty  task  they 
had  to  contend  against  evils  and  prejudices  which  had  their 
origin  in  far  away  back  generations,  and  which  have  cast 


OF  LONDON  216 

down  their  roots  deep  and  intricate  into  our  social 
system.  ,  .  . 

"  The  Acts  under  which  the  Vestries  had  to  work  were 
very  imperfect.  Opposition  was  strong  on  every  hand,  the 
magistrates  sympathised  with  the  defendants.  Property 
and  its  rights  were  apparently  invaded  ;  and  property  and 
its  rights  have  always  claimed  more  support  than  property 
and  its  duties. 

"  What  was  our  physical  condition?  (in  1855). 

"  In  every  yard  were  one  or  more  of  '  the  foulest  recep- 
tacles in  nature,'  namely,  cesspools  ;  these  gave  off, 
unceasingly,  foul  effluvia,  filling  meat  safe,  cupboard, 
passage  and  room.  The  smell  met  you  on  entering  the 
house,  abode  with  you  whilst  you  remained  in  it,  and  came 
out  with  you  on  leaving  it.  The  parish  was  burrowed  with 
them,  and  the  soil  soddened  with  the  escape  of  their  con- 
tents. The  emptying  of  them  proved  a  true  infliction. 
They  have  now  been  emptied  for  the  last  time,  filled  up 
with  coarse  disinfecting  materials.  .  .  .  They  would  not 
now  be  endured  for  a  moment,  yet  with  what  difficulty 
they  were  abolished.  They  were  clung  to  as  if  some  old 
and  honoured  relic  was  about  to  be  ruthlessly  torn  from  its 
possessors." 

Dr.  Simon,  the  Medical  Officer  to  the  Privy  Council, 
gave,  in  his  report  of  1868,*  a  view  of  sanitary  progress  in 
the  country  generally,  much  of  which  applied  equally  to 
London : — 

"It  would,  I  think,  be  difficult  to  over-estimate,  in  one 
most  important  point  of  view,  the  progress  which,  during 
the  last  few  years,  has  been  made  in  sanitary  legislation. 
The  principles  now  affirmed  in  our  statute  book  are  such  as, 
if  carried  into  full  effect,  would  soon  reduce  to  quite  an 
insignificant  amount  our  present  very  large  proportions  of 
preventable  disease.  It  is  the  almost  completely  expressed 
intention  of  our  law  that  all  such  states  of  property  and  all 
such  modes  of  personal  action  or  inaction  as  may  be  of 
danger  to  the  public  health,  should  be  brought  within  scope 
of  summary  procedure  and  prevention.  Large  powers  have 
*  P.P.  1868-69,  vol.  32. 


216       THE   SANITARY  EVOLUTION 

been  given  to  local  authorities,  and  obligation  expressly 
imposed  on  them,  as  regards  their  respective  districts,  to 
suppress  all  kinds  of  nuisance  and  to  provide  all  such  works 
and  establishments  as  the  public  health  preliminarily 
requires  ;  v^hile  auxiliary  powers  have  been  given,  for 
more  or  less  optional  exercise,  in  matters  deemed  of  less 
than  primary  importance  to  health ;  as  for  baths  and  wash- 
houses,  common  lodging-houses,  labourers'  lodging-houses, 
recreation  grounds,  disinfection-places,  hospitals,  dead- 
houses,  burial  grounds,  &c.  And  in  the  interests  of  health 
the  State  has  not  only,  as  above,  limited  the  freedom  of 
persons  and  property  in  certain  common  respects :  it  has 
also  intervened  in  many  special  relations.  It  has  interfered 
between  parent  and  child,  not  only  imposing  limitation  on 
industrial  uses  of  children,  but  also  to  the  extent  of  requiring 
that  children  shall  not  be  left  unvaccinated.  It  has  inter- 
fered between  employer  and  employed,  to  the  extent  of 
insisting,  in  the  interests  of  the  latter,  that  certain  sanitary 
claims  shall  be  fulfilled  in  all  places  of  industrial  occupa- 
tion. .  .  . 

"  The  above  survey  might  easily  be  extended  by  referring 
to  statutes  which  are  only  of  partial  or  indirect  or  sub- 
ordinate interest  to  human  health ;  but,  such  as  it  is,  it 
shows  beyond  question  that  the  Legislature  regards  the 
health  of  the  people  as  an  interest  not  less  national  than 
personal,  and  has  intended  to  guard  it  with  all  practic- 
able securities  against  trespasses,  casualties,  neglects  and 
frauds. 

"  If,  however,  we  turn  from  contemplating  the  intentions 
of  the  Legislature  to  consider  the  degree  in  which  they  are 
realised,  the  contrast  is  curiously  great.  Not  only  have 
permissive  enactments  remained  for  the  most  part  unapplied 
in  places  where  their  application  has  been  desirable  ;  not 
only  have  various  optional  constructions  and  organisations 
which  would  have  conduced  to  physical  well-being,  and 
which  such  enactments  were  designed  to  facilitate,  remained 
in  an  immense  majority  of  cases  unbegun;  but  even  nuisances 
which  the  law  imperatively  declares  intolerable  have,  on  an 
enormous  scale,  been  suffered  to  continue ;  while  diseases 


OF  LONDON  217 

which  mainly  represent  the  inoperativeness  of  the  nuisance- 
law,  have  still  been  occasioning,  I  believe,  fully  a  fourth  part 
of  the  entire  mortality  of  the  country.  And  when  inquiry 
is  made  into  the  meaning  of  this  strange  unprogressiveness 
in  reforms  intended,  and  in  great  part  commanded,  by  the 
Legislature,  the  explanation  is  not  far  to  seek.  Its  essence 
is  in  the  form,  or  perhaps  I  may  rather  say  in  the  formless- 
ness, of  the  law.  No  doubt  there  are  here  and  there  other 
faults.  But  the  essential  fault  is  that  laws  which  ought  to 
be  in  the  utmost  possible  degree,  simple,  coherent,  and 
intelligible,  are  often  in  nearly  the  utmost  possible  degree, 
complex,  disjointed  and  obscure.  Authorities  and  persons 
wishing  to  give  them  effect  may  often  find  almost  insuperable 
difficulties  in  their  way;  and  authorities  and  persons  with 
contrary  disposition  can  scarcely  -fail  to  find  excuse  or 
impunity  for  any  amount  of  malfeasance  or  evasion." 

To  this  review  by  one  of  the  ablest  and  most  experienced 
of  men  of  the  time  in  matters  relating  to  the  public 
health,  it  must,  however,  be  added  that  so  far  as  the 
metropolis  was  "concerned,  "the  meaning  of  this  strange 
unprogressiveness  "  was  not  so  much  the  formlessness  of 
the  law,  as  the  fact  that  the  interests  against  the  enforce- 
ment of  many  portions  of  the  law  were  predominant,  and 
the  non-administration  of  the  law  was  due  far  more  to  that 
circumstance  than  to  any  ambiguities  or  obscurities  in  the 
laws.  "  Vested  interests  in  filth  and  dirt  "  were  all  power- 
ful on  the  greater  number  of  the  local  authorities  of  London, 
and  so  the  law  which  would  have  interfered  with  those 
interests  was  left  severely  unadministered. 

Against  these  interests  it  was  difficult  to  struggle — 
especially  when  there  was  no  compulsion  upon  the 
administrators  of  the  laws  to  administer  them.  Sheltered 
under  a  permissive,  they  would  not  exercise  a  compulsory 
power — a  power  entrusted  to  them  with  the  control  of 
public  money  for  public  good. 

The  true  cause  of  the  inoperativeness  of  the  law  was, 
in  a  way,  pointed  out  by  the  Medical  Officer  of  Health  for 
St.  James',  "Westminister,  when  he  wrote  (1869-70)  : — 

"  The  great  deficiency  of  the  Act  of  1866,  as  of  all  other 


218       THE   SANITARY  EVOLUTION 

English  legislation  on  sanitary  matters,  is  that  no  public 
prosecutor  is  appointed.  If  Vestries  neglect  to  prosecute, 
and  individuals  do  not  see  their  way  to  it,  people  may  be 
killed  by  infectious  diseases  to  any  extent," 

And  the  Medical  Officer  of  Health  for  St.  Giles'  expressed 
a  similar  opinion  when  he  wrote  (1870)  : — 

"  The  duty  of  making  these  sanitary  improvements 
should  be  imperative  instead  of  permissive.  It  was  wise, 
at  first,  perhaps,  that  our  sanitary  legislation  should  be 
tentative  and  experimental ;  but  experience  having  proved 
its  necessity  it  should  be  made  more  stringent." 

But  neither  of  them  got  so  far  as  to  see  the  natural  and 
simple  remedy,  that  where  a  local  authority  for  one  reason 
or  another  would  not  administer  the  laws  made  by  Parlia- 
ment, the  central  authority  should  step  in  and  do  the  work 
at  the  cost  and  expense  of  the  recalcitrant  local  authority. 

If  one  set  of  people  failed  in  their  duty  to  the  public, 
it  was  but  right  that  where  such  tremendous  issues  were 
at  stake  as  the  health  and  physical  well-being,  not  merely 
of  the  people  of  one  parish  but  of  over  three  and  a  quarter 
millions  of  people — and  all  that  their  health  and  well-being 
implied — the  administration  of  the  law  should  be  placed 
in  hands  that  would  administer  it. 

That,  however,  was  but  part  of  the  great  problem, 
though  it  would  have  gone  a  long  way  in  ameliorating 
things.  The  other  necessity  was  the  strengthening  and 
altering  of  the  law  which  itself  stood  in  need  of  many  and 
large  changes  before  a  sure  foundation  could  be  laid  for  the 
future  health  of  the  great  community  resident  in  the  great 
metropolis  of  London. 

And  other  matters  which  ultimately  were  to  have  great 
influence  towards  the  solution  of  some  of  the  worst  of  the 
health  difficulties  in  London  were  coming  into  view,  and 
assuming  form  and  substance. 

Tramways,  with  their  facilities  of  traffic,  were  about  to 
be  started. 

In  1869  three  private  Acts  were  passed,  authorising 
the  construction  and  working  of  tramway  lines  in  the 
metropolis,  and  in  the  following  year  several  more  private 


OF  LONDON  219 

Acts  and  "  The  Tramways  Act,  1870,"  which  was  a  general 
measure.  Its  main  object  was  to  provide  a  simple,  in- 
expensive, and  uniform  mode  of  proceeding  in  obtaining 
authority  for  the  construction  of  tramways,  and  to  give  the 
local  authorities  the  power  of  regulation  and  control. 

In  London  the  Metropolitan  Board  of  Works  was  con- 
stituted the  "local  authority"  under  the  Act;  and  that 
Board  was  empowered  to  apply  for  a  Provisional  Order 
itself  to  construct  tramways,  and  lease  them  to  other 
persons,  and  was  given,  with  the  approval  of  the  Board 
of  Trade,  a  compulsory  power  of  purchase  after  a  period  of 
twenty-eight  years  on  certain  conditions. 

And  in  1870  another  Act  of  the  most  far-reaching  im- 
portance was  passed,  "  The  Elementary  Education  Act," 
which  prescribed  the  establishment  of  a  School  Board  for 
London,  and  which  in  process  of  time  would  exercise  vast 
influence  towards  a  cleaner,  brighter,  healthier  life  than  any 
hitherto  within  the  reach  of  the  masses  of  the  population  of 
London. 

But  though  progress  was  being  made  in  many  ways,  the 
progress  had  not  affected  infantile  life. 

"  The  dreary  catalogue  of  human  misery  "  given  in  the 
statistics  of  infantile  mortality  was  as  dreary  as  ever. 

In  every  part  of  London  those  statistics  were  appalling. 

In  1867,  in  the  Whitecross  Street  District  of  St.  Luke, 
no  less  than  64"4  per  cent,  of  the  mortality  for  the  district 
consisted  of  deaths  among  children  under  five  years  of  age. 
In  1868  it  was  close  upon  61  per  cent. 

In  Bethnal  Green,  in  1869-70,  of  3,378  deaths,  1,900  were 
under  five  =  56'3  per  cent. 

In  a  sub-division  of  Whitechapel,  in  1865-6,  close  upon 
58  per  cent,  were  under  five ;  in  Poplar  a  fraction  short  of 
47  per  cent. 

In  Kensington,  in  1866,  40*6  per  cent,  were  under  five. 

Each  year  the  Medical  Officer  of  Health  for  Fulham 
drew  attention  to,  and  protested  against,  the  high  rate, 
neajrly  50  per  cent,  of  infantile  mortality  under  five,  in 
1867-8. 

In  Wandsworth,  in  1870-1  =  47  per  cent. 


220  SANITARY  EVOLUTION  OF  LONDON 

In  Camberwell,  in  1868  =  nearly  50  per  cent. 

In  St.  Mary,  Newington,  and  in  Rotherhithe  =  50  per 
cent. 

In  Bermondsey,  in  1869-70  =  56  per  cent. 

In  certain  streets  the  percentage  was  much  higher.  Thus 
in  Paddington  (1870-1)  :— 

"Woodchester  Street 56  per  cent. 

Cirencester         ,,       65         ,, 

Clarendon  „       72        „ 

The  high  infantile  mortality  betokened  high  infantile 
sickness,  but  of  it  no  records  have  ever  been  kept. 


CHAPTEE  IV 

1871-1880 

In  1871,  the  decennial  Census  once  more  afforded  reliable 
information  as  to  the  population  of  London,  and  gave  the 
means  of  ascertaining  much  else  of  the  greatest  value. 

The  population  had  gone  up  to  3,254,260  in  1871,  from 
the  2,808,862  it  had  been  in  1861,  an  increase  of  445,398. 
But  the  rate  of  increase  was  declining.  The  decennial  in- 
crease of  population  which  had  been  21"2  in  1841-1851, 
18-7  in  1851-1861,  had  further  declined  to  161  in  1871. 

The  returns  showed  that  London  contained  2,055,576 
persons  born  within  its  own  limits,  and  1,198,684  persons 
born  outside  its  borders. 

**  "Whence  came  these  multitudes  of  both  sexes,  equal  in 
themselves,  without  counting  those  born  there,  to  a  number 
greater  than  the  inhabitants  of  any  other  European  city?  " 

More  than  607,000  of  them  came  from  the  chiefly  agri- 
cultural eastern,  south-eastern,  and  south-midland  counties 
surrounding  the  metropolis. 

A  large  contingent  of  147,000  was  drawn  from  Devon- 
shire, Wiltshire,  Somersetshire,  and  the  other  south- 
western counties. 

The  west-midland  counties  sent  up  84,000. 

41,000  persons  had  come  from  Scotland,  91,000  from 
Ireland,  20,000  from  the  Colonies,  and  66,000  from 
foreign  parts. 

In  fact,  over  37  per  cent,  of  the  population  of  London  in 
1871  were  immigrants  into  the  great  metropolis — a  great 
rushing  river  of  humanity. 

221 


222        THE   SANITARY  EVOLUTION 

The  returns  were  also  of  special  interest  in  showing  the 
changes  in  the  distribution  of  the  population.  Speaking 
broadly,  the  previous  movements  were  being  continued — 
a  diminishing  population  in  the  central  parts,  an  increasing 
population  in  the  outer  parts. 

It  appeared  to  be  inevitable  that — 

"  As  the  trade  of  London  continued  to  increase,  so  the  dis- 
tricts which  lay  close  to  the  great  centres  of  business  must 
be  expected  to  be  occupied  more  and  more  with  warehouses, 
and  less  and  less  with  the  miserable  dwelling-houses  which 
had  hitherto  sheltered  its  poor  and  working-class  population." 

The  diminution  of  the  population  of  the  central  parts  of 
London  was  in  no  way  a  symptom  of  decay  :  it  was,  in 
reality,  proof  of  the  reverse,  being  the  result  of  increasing 
trade,  commerce,  and  wealth,  which  required  more  house 
accommodation  for  the  carrying  on  of  their  enormous 
operations. 

The  great  economic  forces  were  in  fact  as  active  and 
powerful  as  ever.  In  the  City  the  population  had  fallen 
in  the  decade  from  111,784  to  74,635.  In  every  one  of  the 
six  parishes  or  districts  composing  the  Central  group  the 
population  had  likewise  decreased. 

In  the  Eastern  group,  the  population  of  three  had  de- 
creased, whilst  in  the  others  there  were  increases — notably 
so  in  Poplar,  where  there  was  an  increase  of  37,000,  and  in 
Bethnal  Green,  where  there  was  an  increase  of  15,000. 

In  the  Northern  group  all  had  increased,  except  St. 
Marylebone — the  increase  in  Hackney  being  over  41,000, 
and  in  Islington  over  58,000. 

In  the  West,  there  were  also  large  increases — Fulham 
27,000,  Paddington  21,000,  Kensington  50,000.  Only  St. 
James'  (Westminster)  and  Westminster  had  decreased,  and 
they  in  reality  belonged  more  to  the  centre  than  to  the  west. 

On  the  South  side,  with  the  exception  of  Christchurch, 
St.  Olave,  and  St.  Saviour's — all  in  Southwark — and  Green- 
wich, there  was  an  increase  in  all  the  parishes  or  districts, 
the  increases  in  some  being  very  large ;  40,000  in  Camber- 
well,  46,000  in  Lambeth,  55,000  in  Wandsworth. 

The  figures  thus  furnished  by  ^he  Census  enabled  a  fairly 


OF  LONDON  223 

accurate  calculation  to  be  made  as  to  the  death-rate.  It 
now  appeared  to  be  24'6  per  1,000  living. 

The  Registrar  General,  in  his  report  for  1873,  entered  into 
a  comparison  with  previous  years  which  may  be  assumed 
to  be  as  accurate  as  any  such  calculations  could  be. 

The  mortality  was  as  high  as  29*4  in  1854.  It  was  26'5 
in  1866  (when  cholera  was  epidemic),  and  it  was  as  low  as 
21-5  in  1872,  and  225  in  1873. 

"  The  mortality  never  having  been  so  low  in  any  two  con- 
secutive years  since  1840,  and  by  fair  inference  never  so  low 
in  any  two  years  since  London  existed." 

This  was  distinctly  encouraging,  demonstrating  as  it  did 
the  good  results  ensuing  upon  the  great  works  oE  improved 
drainage  and  sewerage,  and  a  healthier  water  supply. 

As  to  the  housing  of  this  huge  population,  it  was  shown 
that  the  number  of  inhabited  houses  had  increased  from 
360,035  to  419,642. 

The  reports  of  many  of  the  Medical  Officers  of  Health 
throw  much  additional  light  upon,  and  explain  or  elucidate 
the  facts  set  out  in  the  Census,  and  carry  on  the  narrative 
into  later  years  of  the  matters  recorded  by  the  Census 
Commissioners. 

Thus,  as  regarded  the  reduction  of  the  population  in  the 
central  group  of  parishes,  the  Medical  Officer  of  Health  for 
the  Strand  District  ascribed  it  in  part  to  the  new  Law 
Courts,  and  to  the  circumstance  that  residential  houses 
were,  in  increasing  numbers,  becoming  converted  into 
business  premises. 

"But,"  he  added,  "it  is  also  probably  in  some  measure 
due  to  the  greater  facihties  for  locomotion  to  suburban 
homes  "  ;  which  is  notable  as  almost,  if  not  absolutely,  the 
first  recognition  of  this  cause  affecting  the  population. 

In  St.  James',  the  decrease  of  population  was  "  due  to 
the  fact  that  the  district  had  increasingly  become  the  centre 
for  clubs,  hotels,  and  splendid  shops.  The  result  had  been 
an  enormous  rise  in  the  value  of  houses,  and  a  gradual 
extrusion  of  the  less  wealthy  and  important  residents." 

In  St.  George-in-the-East,  the  Medical  Officer  of  Health 
stated  that : — 


224       THE   SANITARY  EVOLUTION 

"  The  decrease  of  population  was  due  to  houses  being 
taken  by  a  railway  company,  by  the  Poor  Law  Guardians 
for  an  infirmary,  for  a  church,  &c." 

How  considerable  the  clearances  were  in  some  districts 
may  be  inferred  from  the  figures  given  by  the  Medical 
Officer  of  Health  for  St.  Giles'  in  1871. 

"  The  clearances  in  the  City  of  London  for  the  purposes 
of  erecting  a  new  market,  and  a  viaduct,  and  in  the  Strand 
district  to  form  a  site  for  the  proposed  Law  Courts,  have 
aggravated  the  evil  of  overcrowding.  To  effect  these  im- 
provements (or  chiefly  so)  the  large  number  of  18,358  per- 
sons have  been  removed.  Strand,  6,998;  St.  Sepulchre 
(City),  4,188;  St.  Bride  (City),  4,211;  Saffron  Hill,  2,961." 

And  in  St.  Olave,  on  the  south  side  of  the  river,  the 
Medical  Officer  of  Health  wrote  : — 

"  Since  the  census  of  1861,  436  houses  have  been  pulled 
down,  clearing  away  whole  streets  and  courts  for  the  forma- 
tion of  railways  and  the  extension  of  warehouses,  displacing 
961  families  comprising  3,556  persons." 

Consequent  upon  these  clearances,  and  the  people  having 
to  find  dwelling  room  somewhere,  the  transition  of  houses 
built  for  a  single  family  into  tenement-houses  continued  in 
full  swing. 

The  Medical  Officer  of  Health  for  St.  Mary,  Newington, 
reported  (1873)  that  year  by  year  the  better  class  of  houses 
were  becoming  less  and  less  inhabited  by  a  single  family. 

The  Medical  Officer  of  Health  for  Paddington  gave  a 
very  clear  description  of  the  process, 

"  There  is  a  very  dense  packing  of  population,"  he  wrote 
(1873),  and  he  mentioned  some  instances  : — 

"  Brindley  Street  with  801  persons  living  in  65  houses. 
Hampden  Street    „     876         ,,  ,,        78      ,, 

WaverleyEoad     „     900        „  „        72      „ 

"  Builders  intended  these  houses  at  first  for  one  respect- 
able family,  but  ...  in  violation  of  common  sense  and 
decency  they  are  let  out  in  tenements  and  single  rooms, 
without  those  essential  conditions  of  a  dwelling  which  land- 
lords should  in  all  instances  be  compelled  to  provide. 


OF  LONDON  225 

"  There  is  yet  in  reality  no  law  to  prevent  the  creation  of 
unhealthy  districts  as  long  as  five  or  six  families  are  allowed 
to  live  in  one  house  intended  for  a  single  family.  .  .  . 
Houses  should  be  built  with  reference  to  the  future  health 
of  the  people  who  will  have  to  live  in  them. 

"And  now,  while  the  fields  are  open  and  still  unbuilt 
upon,  it  would  be  worth  the  attempt  to  overcome  the 
destructive  influences  likely  to  be  established  in  building 
tenement  dwellings  as  the  population  gathers  in  this  and 
other  neighbourhoods.  They  will  some  day  be  hives  of 
pauperism." 

Furthermore,  in  some  parishes,  the  natural  growth  of  the 
population  was  very  rapid.  In  Islington,  for  instance,  the 
Medical  Officer  of  Health  wrote  : — 

"  The  Life  Balance  Sheet  of  your  parish  for  1875  shows 
that  your  losses  and  gains  leave  you  4,376  lives  to  the  good, 
or  in  other  words  4,656  deaths  and  9,032  births  have  been 
registered  in  the  parish  of  St.  Mary,  Islington." 

And  the  Medical  Officer  of  Health  for  St.  Marylebone 
wrote  (1877)  :— 

"If  we  compare  the  annual  number  of  births  with  the 
deaths,  we  shall  find  that  every  year  some  1,200  or  1,500 
more  persons  are  born  in  the  parish  than  die  in  it ;  and 
what,  it  may  be  asked,  becomes  of  the  surplus  population  ? 
The  only  answer  is,  that  it  migrates ;  it  could  not  remain 
in  the  parish  for  the  simple  reason  that  there  is  no 
room,  all  available  spaces  in  St.  Marylebone  have  long 
been  built  upon,  and  the  houses  occupied,  many  of  them 
crowded." 

To  the  migration  rendered  necessary  by  the  natural 
growth  of  the  population,  and  by  the  diminishing  number 
of  houses  in  the  central  parts,  was  added  the  ceaseless 
stream  of  fresh  immigrants  into  London.  These  vast 
numbers  had  to  find  house  accommodation  somewhere,  and 
they  found  it,  in  their  tens  of  thousands,  in  various  parts 
of  the  less  central  portions  of  the  metropolis. 

In  Kensington,  for  instance,  the  Medical  Officer  of  Health 
stated  (1871)  that  the  larger  portion  of  the  increase  of 
nearly  41,000  in  the  ten  years  was  due  to  immigration. 

16 


226       THE   SANITARY  EVOLUTION 

The  Medical  Officer  of  Health  for  Fulham  drew  a  graphic 
picture  of  this  inrush  of  humanity. 

"  The  steady  growth  of  London  westward  has  thrown 
among  us  a  vast  and  teeming  population  of  the  working 
classes,  as  well  as  those  of  more  well-to-do  condition,  and 
for  the  housing  of  the  former  many  blocks  of  wretched 
and  most  miserably  constructed  dwellings  continue  to  be 
erected  with  the  most  utter  disregard  for  drainage  or  other 
sanitary  appliances  now  so  essential.  That  part  of  Fulham, 
once  open  fields,  is  still  being  rapidly  covered  with  streets 
and  houses  of  this  character,  and  many  open  spots  in 
Hammersmith  are  being  filled  in  the  same  way.  Our 
healthy  neighbourhood  may  thus  be  made  ere  long  a  land 
of  sickness  and  disease  unless  some  check  is  given  to 
such  speculative  buildings.  Our  natural  advantage  with 
all  our  care  will  not  avail  us  against  such  utter  reck- 
lessness." 

The  increase  of  21,000  in  Paddington  drew  from  the 
Medical  Officer  of  Health  the  query — 

"...  "Whether  any  and  what  steps  should  be  taken  to 
prevent  the  wholesale  influx  of  a  colossus  of  pauperism  with 
the  consequent  burdens  of  poverty  and  sickness." 

It  had  already  driven  the  people  underground  for  shelter, 
for  in  1871  he  described  how — 

"  Many  of  the  underground  kitchens  in  Leinster  Street 
(and  four  others  named)  have  been  inspected  where  the  poor 
people  are  found  living  like  Esquimaux  in  underground  cave 
dwellings — places  with  impure  air,  want  of  light,  admitted 
only  through  a  grating  in  front,  the  upper  sash  of  the  window 
being  often  out  of  repair,  or  nailed  up." 

The  rapid  increase  of  population  in  London  would  not 
have  been  accompanied  with  such  serious  results  to  the 
public  health  as  it  was,  if  the  houses  which  were  being  so 
rapidly  built  for  the  people  to  inhabit  had  been  constructed 
on  sound  sanitary  principles. 

But  this  was  very  far  from  being  the  case,  and  the  evils 
described  in  the  last  chapter  in  this  respect  continued  over 
an  enlarged  area,  and  in  accentuated  form. 

It  is  now  almost  incredible  that  the  laws  should  have  been 


OF  LONDON  227 

left  in  such  a  state  as  to  enable  builders,  without  any  legal 
check,  to  put  up  the  houses  they  did. 

The  Medical  Officer  of  Health  for  Mile-End-Old-Town 
pointed  out  (in  1872)  that  "  The  position  and  structure  of 
houses  has  a  very  distinct  bearing  upon  the  public  health, 
yet  very  little  regard  is  given  to  sanitary  principles  in  their 
construction.  .  .  .  The  class  of  small  houses  for  the  crowded 
occupation  of  the  poorer  classes  is  generally  built  either 
upon  '  made  ground '  composed  of  refuse  and  debris  of  all 
descriptions,  the  organic  portion  of  which  presently  fills  the 
houses  with  various  disease-producing  gases,  or  upon  newly 
opened  ground  saturated  with  miasma,  without  the  least 
attempt  at  protection  by  means  of  previous  drainage  or 
properly  protected  excavated  foundations." 

And  in  1876  he  reverted  to  the  subject  : — 

"  Water,  air,  and  light  are  nature's  disinfectants  and  pre- 
ventions of  disease.  They  are  abundantly  provided,  but 
more  meagrely  and  inefficiently  used,  and  indeed  practi- 
cally ignored, '  by  architects,  builders,  owners,  and  occu- 
piers. ..." 

A  witness  before  a  Select  Committee  testified  in  1874* 
that  : — 

"  Houses  were  being  built  upon  the  soil — any  soil,  in 
point  of  fact — and  the  foundations  of  houses  consisted  very 
often  of  nothing  but  manure,  and  old  boots,  old  hats,  or 
anything  thrown  into  it." 

The  Medical  Officer  of  Health  for  Poplar  wrote  (1873)  :— 

"  The  continued  rapid  increase  in  the  number  of  new 
streets  and  houses  in  various  parts  of  the  district  presents 
many  unsatisfactory  features. 

"  In  most  cases,  before  the  buildings  are  commenced,  the 
gravel  is  dug  out,  and  the  hole  filled  up  with  so-called 
brick  rubbish,  but  in  reality  with  road-sweepings,  the 
sif tings  of  the  dust  yards  and  similar  refuse.  The  dwelling- 
houses,  mostly  of  the  poorer  class,  are  largely  built  of  soft 
ill-burnt  bricks,  and  are  tenanted  generally  as  soon  as  they 
are  finished — frequently  even  before  they  are  complete. 

-''  Select  Committee  on  Metropolitan  Buildings  and  Management  Bill, 
1874.     P.P.,  vol.  X. 


228        THE   SANITARY  EVOLUTION 

"  As  a  matter  of  course  the  walls  are  still  damp,  the  streets 
unpaved,  and  the  residents  suffer  often  very  seriously  in 
their  health." 

The  Medical  Officer  of  Health  described  ten  acres  of 
houses  in  Hackney  as  "  almost  entirely  built  upon  a 
great  dust  heap,"  built,  too,  of  porous  bricks  and  bad 
mortar. 

And  another  witness  before  a  Select  Committee  in  1882 
described  how,  in  the  other  end  of  London — in  Wandsworth 
— on  an  estate  "  which  practically  might  be  considered  a 
small  town,"  the  ground  has  been  j&lled  in  to  a  depth  of 
six  or  seven  feet  with  filth  of  every  description,  and  houses 
have  been  rapidly  built  upon  it.  The  results  to  the  health 
of  the  inhabitants  were  disastrous. 

This,  however,  by  no  means  completed  the  description  of 
the  evil  condition  of  the  buildings. 

The  Medical  Officer  of  Health  for  Shoreditch  wrote 
(1876-7)  :— 

"  Not  only  was  the  health  of  the  inhabitants  endangered 
by  the  presence  of  a  large  number  of  old  decayed  brick  drains, 
but  also  by  many  new  drains  which  had  been  carelessly  laid. 
Their  joints  leaked  ;  in  some  places  neither  cement  nor  clay 
had  been  used,  and  pipes  had  been  connected  with  drains  at 
right  angles." 

And  the  Medical  Officer  of  Health  for  St.  George-the- 
Martyr  added  his  testimony  (1877-8)  : — 

"  Not  only  may  the  materials  of  which  our  buildings  are 
constructed  be  thus  defective,  but  the  drainage  may  be  and 
is  indeed  mostly  laid  carelessly  and  imperfectly.  .  .  .  An 
eminent  Civil  Engineer,  one  who  has  had  a  very  large 
experience  in  this  division  of  his  profession,  informs  me  that 
90  per  cent,  of  the  houses  built  are  imperfectly  drained,  that 
the  drains  are  laid  in  a  reckless  manner,  the  joints  often  not 
cemented,  and  that  the  way  in  which  they  are  laid  is 
unscientific  and  dangerous.  No  wonder  we  have  continued 
ill-health  of  the  occupants." 

The  Medical  Officer  of  Health  for  Fulham  described  in 
1872-3  how  in  "  Fulham  New  Town  "  the  basements  of  the 
houses  had  been  built  below  any  available  sewerage,  with 


OF  LONDON  229 

the  result  of  constant  floodings  of  cesspool  matter  to  the 
great  danger  of  the  public  health. 

And  the  materials  of  which  the  superstructure  was  made 
were  as  bad  as  they  well  could  be.  Porous,  and  half  baked, 
and  broken  bricks  being  used,  and  mortar  mixed  with 
garden  mould  or  road  scrapings — "some  without  a  particle 
of  lime  in  it." 

In  Battersea  Fields — 

"You  will  find  them  there  putting  the  houses  together  in 
such  a  way  that  you  may  kick  the  walls  down  with  your 
feet.  "  * 

The  Medical  Officer  of  Health  for  Whitechapel  put  the 
subject  very  tersely  when  he  wrote  in  1880  : — 

"  In  the  construction  of  houses  the  only  thing  that  appears 
to  be  considered  is  that  of  cheapness. " 

Until  near  the  end  of  this  decade  of  1871-1881,  a 
building  could  be  constructed  without  any  supervision 
of  the  materials,  and  any  number  of  structures  which 
could  not  be  occupied  without  danger  to  life  or  health 
might  be  put  up,  for  no  one  had  power  to  interfere. 
The  London  Building  Act  had  no  adequate  clauses  to 
secure  the  effectual  purity  of  new  dwellings,  nor  had 
the  Sanitary  Authority  any  power  to  check  the  practice 
of  building  houses  on  rotten  filth. 

And  so  all  these  evil  practices  were  very  widely  indulged 
in;  for  though  there  were  many  respectable  men  among 
builders  of  small  houses,  there  were  many  who,  regardless 
of  all  consequences,  covered  the  suburbs  with  "  small, 
rotten  houses."  And  immense  numbers  of  the  people 
were  absolutely  unprotected  either  by  the  Government 
or  by  the  local  authority  from  abuses  which  entailed  upon 
them  ill-health  and  death,  and  from  practices  which 
created  and  spread  disease  throughout  the  community. 

The  Medical  Officer  of  Health  for  St.  George-the- 
Martyr,  Southwark,  referring  to  "  the  dishonest  and 
scandalous  way "  in  which  some  houses  were  built,  said 
(1877-8)  :— 

*  Evidence  of  G.  Vulliamy,  Select  Committee,  1874.  Superintending- 
Architect  to  that  Board. 


230       THE    SANITARY  EVOLUTION 

"  From  the  greed  of  a  few  builders  this  traffic  in 
human  life,  and  in  what  makes  life  valuable,  is  openly 
and  defiantly  carried  on.  Under  such  circumstances  full 
health  is  impossible.  Yet  for  the  success  and  per- 
manence of  natural  existence  a  high  standard  is  absolutely 
necessary." 

Of  builders  such  as  these  it  may  be  truly  said  that 
having  created  a  damnosa  hereditas  in  one  place,  they 
moved  on  to  create  fresh  ones  in  others,  and  no  one  pre- 
vented them. 

So  glaring  were  these  evils  that  a  Select  Committee, 
which  sat  in  1874  on  the  Metropolitan  Buildings  and 
Management  Bill  of  that  year,  recommended — 

"  That  the  District  Surveyor  or  the  Metropolitan  Board 
shall  have  full  power  to  stop  the  progress  of  any  building 
in  which  the  materials  or  construction  is  calculated  to  be 
dangerous  or  injurious  to  health,  and  to  summon  the  builder 
or  owner  before  the  magistrate." 

At  the  rate  houses  were  being  built,  the  defective  Building 
Laws  were  a  grave  disaster. 

In  the  two  parishes  of  Bow  and  Bromley  in  Poplar,  in 
the  five  years  ending  March,  1878,  notices  were  approved 
for  1,981  new  buildings. 

In  Hackney,  in  the  year  1876-7,  notices  were  given  of 
intention  to  erect  800  new  houses,  and  the  extension  of 
streets  and  houses  into  the  fields  had  gone  on  so  rapidly 
that  by  that  time  there  were  but  few  fields  left  in  the 
district,  or  even  large  grounds  belonging  to  any  of  the 
houses. 

In  Kensington  it  was  reported  in  1875  that  the  increase 
in  the  number  of  new  houses  brought  into  occupation  had 
for  a  considerable  period  averaged  700  annually. 

In  Wandsworth,  in  1874-5,  notices  were  received  for  887 
new  houses. 

In  1877-8  for  1,432  new  houses. 
„  1878-9   „   1,845 
„  1880-1   „   3,073 

And  in  every  place  land  was  being  grabbed  for  building 
purposes. 


OF   LONDON  231 

The  Medical  Ofl&cer  of  Health  for  Whitechapel  wrote 
in  1879:— 

"  We  are  now  paying  very  dearly  both  in  health  and 
money  for  the  errors  of  preceding  generations  in  their  having 
allowed  houses  to  be  packed  closely  together.  .  .  .  Several 
cases  have  recently  occurred  in  this  district  of  landlords 
erecting  dwelling-houses  in  the  back-yards  of  those  houses 
which  were  formerly  occupied  by  a  single  family.  This  is  a 
serious  evil  and  ought  to  be  prevented.  We  have  power 
to  prevent  the  overcrowding  of  rooms,  and  we  certainly 
ought  to  have  power  to  prevent  the  cramming  together  of 
houses  on  sites  of  insufficient  size  for  the  healthy  existence 
of  the  tenants." 

Even  burial-grounds  were  not  sacred,  nor  were  public 
authorities  even  immaculate  in  this  respect.  Thus  in 
St.  Luke:— 

"  The  Quakers'  burial-ground  by  the  side  of  Coleman 
Street  is  now  (1876)  in  progress  towards  being  covered  with 
buildings,  and  .a  portion  was  taken  by  the  London  School 
Board  for  the  erection  of  a  school.  In  the  process  of 
excavation  for  the  foundation,  human  remains  were 
discovered." 

And  the  areas  at  the  backs  of  houses  were  also  being 
rapidly  covered  over.  The  Act  of  1855  had  provided  that 
100  superficial  feet  should  be  left  open — 

"But  the  exigencies  of  trade  have  led  the  Metropolitan 
Board  of  Works  and  the  District  Surveyors  to  permit  the 
area  on  the  ground  storey  to  be  covered  over."  * 

In  fact,  the  insufficiency  of  the  laws  as  regarded  build- 
ings intended  for  huraan  habitation,  and  the  mal-administra- 
tion  or  non-administration  of  those  laws  which  existed, 
resulted  in  the  creation  of  evils  which  inevitably  and  most 
injuriously  affected  the  health  of  the  pubHc,  not  merely  at 
the  time,  but  for  many  years  to  come. 

The  Medical  Officer  of  Health  for  St.  Giles',  in  1871, 
pointed  out  the  necessity  of  a  change  of  the  law. 

"It  is  very  much  to  be  desired  that  the  law  gave  more 
stringent  powers  to  local  authorities  to  prevent  the  re- 
*  See  Report  of  Select  Committee,  &c.,  1874,  Q.  23,445. 


232       THE   SANITARY  EVOLUTION 

erection  of  buildings  upon  the  old  sites,  so  that  the  new 
buildings  might  not  become  as  unfavourable  to  health  as 
the  old  ones.  .  .  .  Such  a  perpetuation  of  mischief  ought 
not  to  be  permitted,  and  the  rights  of  landlords  should  be 
subordinated  to  the  public  good." 

The  condition  of  existing,  as  apart  from  new,  houses 
also  stood  in  need  of  many  changes  of  the  law  to  effect 
their  redemption.  The  necessity  was  forcibly  portrayed 
by  the  Medical  Officer  of  Health  for  St.  Marylebone 
in  1870.     He  wrote:— 

"  Of  all  the  obstacles  that  stand  in  the  way  of  anything 
like  effective  sanitary  operations,  not  only  in  St,  Marylebone, 
but  in  nearly  every  other  district  of  the  metropolis,  there 
are  none  so  formidable,  so  apparently  irremediable  as  the 
miserable  house  accommodation  provided  for  the  labouring 
classes.  Year  after  year  I  am  called  upon  to  tell  the  same 
unvarying  story  of  rotten  floors,  broken  walls  and  ceilings, 
windows  and  roofs  that  let  in  the  wind  and  the  rain,  chim- 
neys that  will  not  let  out  the  smoke,  and  of  these  wretched 
tenements  being  crowded  with  honest,  hard-working  people, 
from  the  cellars  to  the  attics." 

Parliament  continued  in  this  decade  the  greater  solicitude 
about  and  interest  in  matters  connected  with  the  public 
health,  which  it  had  recently  been  showing ;  and  the  first 
year  of  the  decade,  1871,  is  noteworthy  for  the  adoption  by 
Parliament  of  a  measure  which  had  far-reaching  effects  upon 
the  sanitary  evolution  of  the  metropolis.  This  was  the 
creation  (by  "  The  Local  Government  Board  Act,  1871  ") 
of  a  Central  Government  Authority  for  the  supervision  by 
Government  of  the  sanitary  authorities  in  England  and 
"Wales,  and  also  of  those  in  London. 

Matters  relating  to  the  health  of  the  people  had  become 
so  large  a  portion  of  the  work  of  government,  that  the 
necessity  had  forced  itself  upon  Parliament  of  concentrating 
in  one  department  of  the  Government  the  supervision  of 
the  laws  relating  to  the  public  health,  the  relief  of  the  poor, 
and  local  government. 

The  new  authority,  which  was  entitled  the  Local  Govern- 
ment Board,  was   not   a  representative   body,  but   was    a 


OF  LONDON  233 

Government  Department.  It  was  to  consist  of  a  President, 
appointed  by  the  Queen,  and  of  the  following  "  ex-officio  " 
members — the  Lord  President  of  the  Privy  Council,  all  the 
Secretaries  of  State  for  the  time  being,  the  Lord  Privy  Seal, 
and  the  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer. 

All  the  powers  of  the  Poor  Law  Board  were  transferred 
to  it,  also  certain  powers  and  duties  vested  in  Her  Majesty's 
Privy  Council.  Several  of  the  powers  vested  in  or  imposed 
on  a  Secretary  of  State,  relative  to  health  matters,  were  also 
transferred  to  it.  Henceforth  no  bye-laws  made  by  the 
sanitary  authorities  in  connection  with  their  duties  were 
to  be  of  any  force  until  approved  by  the  new  Board, 

Also  the  Board  was  to  possess,  in  reserve  for  great 
epidemic  emergencies,  a  power  to  issue  directions  under 
the  Diseases  Prevention  Act,  1855. 

But  with  the  exception  of  such  special  cases,  the  function 
of  the  new  Central  Authority  in  regard  of  local  sanitary 
action  was  primarily  one  of  observation  and  inquiry. 

The  various  Vestries  and  District  Boards  of  the  Metropolis 
being  sanitary  authorities  thus  came  under  the  supervision, 
and  in  some  respects  under  the  control,  of  the  new  Central 
Government  Board,  instead  of,  as  previously,  under  a  branch 
of  the  office  of  the  Secretary  of  State  for  the  Home  Depart- 
ment ;  but  to  all  intents  and  purposes  they  retained  their 
liberty  of  administration,  or,  to  state  it  more  accurately, 
their  liberty  of  non-administration.  Their  relations  to  the 
elected  central  body,  the  Metropolitan  Board  of  Works, 
remained  unchanged. 

In  1871,  also,  Parliament  dealt  with  the  water  supply  of 
London.  The  essential  importance  to  the  health  of  the 
population,  especially  in  large  towns,  of  an  adequate  supply 
of  wholesome  water  was  becoming  more  generally  recognised. 

"Without  water  life  cannot  be  sustained,  cleanliness 
cannot  be  maintained,  sanitary  measures  are  at  a  stand- 
still, drains  become  blocked,  offensive  and  deleterious  gases 
are  retained  or  driven  back  into  the  dwellings,  disease  is 
caused  and  fostered,  and  public  as  well  as  private  injury 
caused  in  all  directions." 

The  Act  of  1852  had  failed  to  secure  for  the  inhabitants 


234       THE   SANITARY   EVOLUTION 

the  advantage  which  they  ought  to  have  long  since  enjoyed, 
of  a  well-regulated  supply  of  water  in  their  houses  for 
domestic  purposes. 

A  Select  Committee  of  the  House  of  Commons  recom- 
mended that  every  company  should  afford  a  constant  supply 
of  water  to  each  house,*  so  that  the  water  might  be  drawn 
direct  and  fresh  from  the  company's  pipes  at  all  times 
during  the  twenty-four  hours,  and  free  from  the  pollution 
so  often  acquired  in  dirty  receptacles.  And  a  Eoyal  Com- 
mission, appointed  in  1867,  after  an  elaborate  inquiry,  t 
declared  that  earnest  and  prompt  efforts  ought  to  be  made 
to  introduce  the  constant  service  system  to  the  furthest 
extent  possible  in  the  metropolis.  The  Eeport  of  the 
Royal  Commission  is  memorable  for  the  very  strong  ex- 
pression of  opinion  that  the  water  supply  of  the  metropolis 
should  be  consolidated  under  public  control. 

The  duty  of  supplying  the  inhabitants  of  a  city  with 
water  had  from  a  very  early  period  been  regarded  as  a 
peculiarly  municipal  function,  and  the  supersession  of  the 
municipalities  by  joint  stock  companies  was  a  comparatively 
modern  innovation. 

Thus  far,  however,  Parliament  was  not  disposed  to  go. 
But  (by  the  Metropolis  Water  Act,  1871)  Parhament — 
contenting  itself  mostly  with  "mights" — directed  that 
any  company  might  propose  to  give  a  constant  supply 
of  water,  or  the  Metropolitan  Board  of  Works  might 
apply  to  a  company  for  it ;  failing  both  of  which,  and 
under  certain  conditions,  the  Board  of  Trade  might 
require  a  constant  supply  to  be  provided.  Also  every 
company  should — 

"  On  Sundays,  as  on  other  days,  supply  sufficient  pure 
and  wholesome  water  for  the  domestic  use  of  the  inhabitants 
within  their  limits." 

But  the  Act  did  not  curtail  the  power  of  the  companies  to 
cut  off  the  supply  to  a  house  if  the  water-rate  was  not  paid 
by  the  landlord  or  owner.  An  opinion  was  expressed  on 
this  point  by  the  Medical  Officer  of  Health  for  St.  Mary, 
Newington,  in  1872  : — 

-  Select  Committee  of  1867.  f  P.P.,  1868-9,  vol.  xxxiii. 


OF  LONDON  235 

"I  maintain  that  water  is  absolutely  necessary  for  the 
health,  cleanliness,  and  sanitary  condition  of  every  one, 
and  that  if  a  monopoly  of  its  supply  is  granted  to  any 
company,  no  power  of  withholding  it  should  be  allowed. 

"In  the  present  and  increasing  crowded  condition  of  our 
poorer  houses  the  act  of  one  person  may  enable  a  water 
company  to  refuse  it  to  a  household  of  ten  or  twelve 
people.  ...  I  do  most  strongly  protest  against  a  con- 
tinuation of  a  power  which  in  its  exercise  undermines 
the  very  foundation  of  sanitary  improvement." 

Little,  however,  was  done  either  by  the  Metropolitan 
Board  of  Works,  the  Board  of  Trade,  or  the  companies 
to  avail  themselves  of  the  optional  provisions  of  the 
Act. 

"  Perhaps,"  wrote  the  Medical  Officer  of  Health  for 
Wandsworth,  "  there  never  was  an  Act  of  Parliament  so 
completely  ignored  in  many  districts  as  the  one  in 
question." 

"  The  companies,"  wrote  another  Medical  Officer  of 
Health,  "  are  too  busy  in  looking  after  their  trade 
interests  to  concern  themselves  much  about  the  health 
of  the  people." 

And  the  constant  supply  to  the  people  of  London  was 
postponed  to  the  distant  future. 

In  1871  another  subject  also  claimed  the  attention  of 
Parliament. 

An  epidemic  of  smallpox  of  unexampled  severity  began  at 
the  end  of  the  year  1870,  "  the  like  of  which  had  not  been 
known  in  England  since  vaccination  was  first  practised." 
It  increased  in  London  at  an  alarming  rate  until  it  reached 
its  height  in  May,  1871,  when  288  people  died  of  it  in  one 
week,  and  it  killed  in  London  alone,  in  that  one  year,  7,876 
persons.  And  as  it  was  reasonable  to  assume  that  one  death 
represented  at  the  very  least  eight  or  ten  times  the  number 
of  cases  of  that  most  loathsome  disease,  the  results  were 
frightful,  and  the  injury  inflicted  upon  the  community, 
present  and  future,  disastrous. 

At  one  time  more  than  2,000  smallpox  patients  were 
under  the  care   of  the  Metropolitan  Asylums  Board,  and 


236       THE   SANITARY  EVOLUTION 

the  admissions  into  the  Board's  hospitals  about  the  same 
time  averaged  600  a  week. 

In  a  report  on  the  subject  the  Committee  of  the  House  of 
Commons  wrote : — 

"It  is  impossible  to  say  what  ravages  might  not  have 
been  the  result  of  the  smallpox  epidemic  of  1870-1  had 
it  not  been  for  the  efficiency  and  energy  of  the  Asylums 
Board.  Although  the  prophylactic  virtues  of  vaccination 
have  been  recognised  on  all  sides,  it  must  be  remembered 
that  as  yet  but  a  small  part  of  the  growing  population 
has  been  subjected  to  the  operations  of  the  Compulsory 
Vaccination  Act." 

And  they  expressed  "  their  strong  sense  of  the  great 
services  rendered  to  the  metropolis  by  the  managers." 

The  prevention  of  smallpox  by  vaccination  was  not  yet  a 
very  potent  factor  in  the  diminution  of  that  disease.  Only 
slowly  could  the  Compulsory  Vaccination  Act  of  1867  pro- 
duce effect,  and  as  the  appointment  of  public  vaccinators 
and  the  establishment  of  vaccination  stations  had  been 
made  only  optional,  the  mortality  of  the  outbreak  in  1870-1 
had  been  but  little,  if  at  all,  modified  by  it.  The  epidemic, 
however,  was  used  by  some  to  enforce  a  lesson. 

Thus  the  Medical  Officer  of  Health  for  St.  James' 
wrote : — 

"The  lesson  of  the  great  epidemic  of  smallpox  is  the 
necessity  for  vaccination. 

"  The  history  of  no  other  disease  supplies  so  assuredly  and 
necessarily  the  means  of  its  entire  destruction." 

And  the  managers  of  the  Metropolitan  Asylums  Board,  in 
a  report  issued  in  1871,  wrote  : — 

"  The  necessity  for  re-vaccination  when  the  protective 
power  of  primary  vaccination  has  to  a  great  extent  passed 
away,  cannot  be  too  strongly  urged.  No  greater  argument 
to  prove  the  efficacy  of  this  precaution  can  be  adduced 
than  that  out  of  upwards  of  14,800  cases  received  into  the 
hospitals,  only  four  well-authenticated  cases  were  treated  in 
which  re-vaccination  had  been  properly  performed,  and  these 
were  light  attacks." 

Parliament  passed  an  Act  in  1871,  making  the  appoint- 


OF  LONDON  237 

ment  of  paid  Vaccination  Officers  compulsory  on  all 
Guardians,  and  the  law  generally  more  effective. 

Likewise  in  1871  Parliament  dealt  with  another  matter 
affecting  the  public  health,  and  placed  on  record  its  opinion 
of  the  Vestries  and  District  Boards  by  relieving  them  of  the 
duty  of  enforcing  the  sanitary  provisions  of  the  Workshops 
Act,  which  they  had  failed  to  carry  out,  and  transferring  it 
to  Government  Inspectors  appointed  by  the  Home  Secretary. 

This  was  quite  an  unprecedented  amount  of  sanitary 
legislation  by  Parliament  in  one  year,  and  is  very  notable 
as  showing  the  greater  position  health  matters  were 
assuming  in  the  opinion  of  the  nation,  and  the  greater 
necessity  Parliament  felt  itself  under  for  dealing  with 
them. 

An  improvement  as  regarded  the  food  of  the  people  of 
the  metropolis  was  also  commenced  about  this  time. 

The  Corporation  of  the  City  of  London  had  undertaken 
to  carry  out  the  provisions  of  Part  III.  of  the  Contagious 
Diseases  Animals  Act,  1869,*  and  had  purchased  the  site  of 
Deptford  Dockyard  for  the  purpose  of  a  cattle  market,  and 
for  the  reception  and  slaughter  of  foreign  cattle.  The 
market  was  opened  in  1871,  and  the  system  of  inspection 
there  inaugurated  secured  the  good  quality  of  a  great  portion 
of  the  meat  consumed  in  London. 

In  the  following  year  (1872)  the  purity  of  certain  articles 
of  the  food  and  drink  of  the  people  engaged  the  attention  of 
Parliament. 

Under  the  Act  of  1860  the  Vestries  and  District  Boards 
might  each  appoint  an  analyst,  but  the  great  majority  of 
them  availed  themselves  of  the  permissive  character  of  the 
Act,  and  did  not  appoint  one. 

A  sidelight  is  thrown  upon  the  effect  of  this  inaction  of 
the  local  authorities  by  evidence  given  in  1862  by  a  master 
baker  named  W.  Purvis.     He  said  : — 

"  When  the  Act  passed  for  preventing  the  adulteration  of 
articles  of  food  and  drink  there  was  an  immediate  apprehen- 
sion among  those  bakers  in  the  trade  who  adulterate  their 
bread  that  they  would  be  liable  to  have  their  bread  fre- 

-  32  and  33  Vic.  cap.  70. 


238       THE   SANITARY  EVOLUTION 

quently  analysed,  &c.  But  when  it  was  found  that  no 
sufficient  means  were  provided  by  the  Act  to  meet  the 
expenses  of  this  kind  of  active  and  constant  supervision 
(the  purchaser  having  to  pay  the  analyst),  they  became 
confident  again,  and  have  resumed  their  practice  of 
adulteration  without  any  fear  of  detection."  * 

It  was  felt  now  that  some  further  move  should  be  made, 
and  Parliament  added  another  Act  for  preventing  the 
adulteration  of  food,  drink,  and  drugs  to  the  long  list  of 
those  which  had  gone  before. 

"  Whereas  the  practice  of  adulterating  articles  of  food  and 
drink  and  drugs  for  sale  in  fraud  of  Her  Majesty's  subjects, 
and  to  the  great  hurt  of  their  health  and  danger  to  their 
lives,  requires  to  be  repressed  by  more  effectual  laws  than 
those  which  are  now  in  force  for  that  purpose — 

"Be  it  enacted "  t 

This  Act  made  it  incumbent  upon  all  Vestries  and  District 
Boards  to  appoint  public  analysts  to  analyse  all  articles  of 
food,  drink,  and  drugs,  on  the  request  of  any  parishioners, 
on  payment  of  a  fee ;  and  imposed  the  duty  upon  them  of 
procuring  and  submitting  for  analysis  articles  suspected  to 
be  adulterated,  and  on  their  being  certified  to  be  so,  of 
taking  proceedings  before  a  magistrate,  who  was  given 
power  to  impose  severe  penalties.  The  offences  were  more 
clearly  defined,  and  the  expense  of  executing  the  Act  was 
to  be  paid  out  of  the  rates. 

The  Act  did  much  good,  but  the  amount  of  good  was  not 
to  be  judged  by  the  number  of  prosecutions  and  convictions. 
"  Its  deterrent  effects  were  undoubtedly  great."  X 

A  Select  Committee  of  the  House  of  Commons,  which  had 
been  appointed  in  1872  to  inquire  into  the  subject,  recom- 
mended the  repeal  of  previous  Acts  dealing  with  the  subject, 
and  the  enactment  of  a  new  and  more  compulsory  measure, 
and  in  concluding  their  report  they  said  :  "  Your  Committee 
believe  it  will  afford  some  consolation  to  the  public  to  know 
that  in  the  matter  of  adulteration  they  are  cheated  rather 

*  See  P.P.  1863,  vol.  xxv.  Eeport  by  Tremenheere  on  Bakehouses, 
p.  113. 

f  Adulteration  of  Food  and  Drink  and  Drugs  Act,  1872,  86  and  36  Vic. 
cap.  74.  +  P.p.  1874,  vol.  vi. 


OF  LONDON  239 

than  poisoned.  Witnesses  of  the  highest  standing  concur 
in  stating  that  in  the  numerous  articles  of  food  and  drink 
which  they  have  analysed,  they  have  found  scarcely  anything 
injurious  to  health." 

In  1875  a  further  Act  dealing  with  this  matter  was  passed 
amending  and  strengthening  the  existing  law. 

In  September,  1872,  another  notable  step  in  the  sanitary 
evolution  of  London  was  taken  in  the  creation  of  an 
authority  for  the  protection  of  the  metropolis  against  the 
importation  of  disease  by  sea  from  foreign  countries  or 
from  home  ports. 

"  It  is  now  acknowledged,"  wrote  the  Port  Medical  Officer 
of  Health  in  his  first  report,  "  that,  as  a  natural  result  of  the 
insular  position  of  the  kingdom,  and  the  vast  extent  of  our 
commerce,  the  sanitary  condition  of  shipping  and  of  the 
floating  population  must  exercise  a  considerable  influence 
on  the  health  of  the  country  as  regards  the  importation 
and  transmission  of  epidemic  diseases  .  .  .  the  urgent 
advisabihty  of  -using  all  means  to  prevent  the  introduc- 
tion of  disease  into  this  the  largest  port  in  the  world  is 
sufficiently  apparent." 

Hitherto  the  prevention  of  the  importation  of  the  various 
sorts  of  disease  into  London  by  vessels  trading  to  the  Port 
of  London  from  all  quarters  of  the  world  had  been  confided 
to  the  officers  of  Her  Majesty's  Customs,  and  was  of  the  most 
superficial  and  inadequate  character. 

The  district  assigned  to  the  Port  of  London  Sanitary 
Authority  extended  from  Teddington  Lock  to  the  North 
Foreland,  and  was  88  miles  in  length.  It  included  8  sets 
of  docks  and  13  "  creeks." 

In  the  section  of  river  lying  between  London  Bridge  and 
Woolwich  Arsenal  Pier,  about  10  miles  in  length,  there  was 
a  constant  average  of  no  less  than  400  vessels  of  all  descrip- 
tions moored  on  both  sides  of  the  river,  more  than  90  per 
cent,  of  which  had  crews  on  board. 

The  creeks  were  more  or  less  occupied  by  barges  con- 
taining manure,  street-sweepings,  gas-liquor,  bones  and 
other  varieties  of  foul  cargoes,  inasmuch  as  depots  for  the 
storage  of  these  materials  existed  on  the  banks. 


240       THE   SANITARY  EVOLUTION 

And  lying  in  the  docks  there  was  an  average  of  between 
six  to  seven  hundred  vessels,  over  none  of  which  had  the 
sanitary  authorities  on  the  sides  of  the  river  any  control 
whatever. 

This  was  a  most  unsatisfactory  condition  of  things,  and 
left  London  open  to  the  practically  unchecked  importation 
of  infectious  and  contagious  disease  of  every  kind. 

By  "  Provisional  Order "  of  the  Local  Government 
Board,  the  Corporation  of  London  was  constituted  the 
Sanitary  Authority  of  the  Port  of  London,*  and  was  made 
responsible  not  only  for  taking  proper  steps,  under  Orders 
in  Council,  to  prevent  the  introduction  of  cholera,  but  was 
required  also  to  carry  out,  within  its  allotted  area,  the 
provisions  of  the  various  Nuisances  Kemoval  Acts  and 
Prevention  of  Diseases  Acts  for  England,  and  the  Sanitary 
Act  of  1866. 

Its  authority  extended  only  to  things  afloat.  Whatever 
was  landed  came  within  the  province  of  the  local  Sanitary 
Authority,  except  things  landed  in  the  docks,  and  things 
"  in  bond,"  which  were  under  the  control  of  Her  Majesty's 
Customs. 

The  work  was  undertaken  at  considerable  expense  by  the 
Corporation  out  of  the  City's  cash,  and  at  no  charge  to  the 
^ratepayer. 

And  a  Medical  Officer  of  Health  for  the  Port  and  some 
Inspectors  were  appointed. 

It  was  the  duty  of  the  Port  Medical  Officer — 

"  To  inspect,  before  landing,  all  emigrants  that  arrived  in 
the  Port  from  the  Continent  for  purposes  of  transhipment, 
and  to  isolate  all  suspected  cases,  and  to  carry  out  all 
Special  Orders  in  Council  relating  to  the  prevention  of 
cholera,    or   other   epidemic  diseases." 

He  was  also  charged  with  the  duty  of  inspecting,  at 
Gravesend,  any  cases  of  sickness  on  inward-bound  vessels 
reported  to  the  authorities  by  the  officers  of  Her  Majesty's 
Customs. 

As   to   the  prevention   of   the  importation   of    epidemic 

*  Issued  on  the  17th  of  September,  1872,  and  renewed  the  25th  of 
March,  1873. 


OF  LONDON  241 

diseases  other  than  cholera,  reliance  was  placed  upon  a 
speedy  and  proper  examination  of  vessels  as  soon  as  possible 
after  they  had  come  to  moorings.  A  large  proportion  of 
these  vessels  required  constant  general  inspection. 

Among  the  various  other  duties,  fumigation  and  disin- 
fection of  vessels,  also  of  clothing,  were  not  the  least 
important. 

For  isolation  of  the  sick  a  hospital  ship  was  maintained 
at  Gravesend. 

The  work  done  by  the  Port  Authority  was,  in  spite  of 
many  limitations  and  difficulties,  considerable ;  and  the 
inspection  of  thousands  of  ships,  the  cleansing  and  fumiga- 
tion of  foul  or  infected  vessels,  the  removal  to  hospital  of 
seamen  suffering  from  infectious  or  contagious  disease,  and 
the  disinfection  of  clothing  were,  sanitarily,  of  the  greatest 
advantage  to  the  inhabitants  of  the  metropolis. 

In  another  matter  Parliament,  in  1872,  made  a  com- 
pletely new  departure. 

It  declared  that  "  it  was  expedient  to  make  better  pro- 
vision for  the  protection  of  infants  entrusted  to  persons  to 
be  nursed  or  maintained  for  hire  or  reward  in  that  behalf." 
And  it  inaugurated  a  plan  for  the  protection  of  the  health 
of  the  most  helpless  of  its  numerous  charges — a  plan 
embodied  in  the  Infant  Life  Protection  Act. 

"Houses  of  persons  retaining  or  receiving  for  hire  two 
or  more  infants  for  the  purpose  of  nursing  must  be 
registered." 

The  Local  Authority  (the  Metropolitan  Board  of  Works) 
was  to  cause  a  register  to  be  kept  and  make  bye-laws,  and 
might  refuse  to  register  an  unsuitable  house. 

And  the  registered  owner  must  keep  a  register  of  the 
children,  &c.,  &c. 

If  proved  to  the  satisfaction  of  the  local  authority  that 
such  person  has  been  guilty  of  serious  neglect,  or  is 
incapable  of  providing  the  infants  with  proper  food  and 
attention,  the  house  might  be  struck  off  the  Eegister,  and 
penalties  be  imposed — six  months  with  hard  labour,  and 
up  to  £5  fine. 

The  start  made  was  slow,  only  six  houses  having  been 

17 


242       THE   SANITARY  EVOLUTION 

registered  in  1876 ;  but  the  Act  laid  the  foundations  of  a 
scheme  which  has  had  considerable  developments. 

Specially  valuable  is  it  to  have  the  views  of  one  of  the 
foremost  men  of  his  time  upon  the  phase  of  opinion 
existing  at  this  period  upon  the  general  question  of  the 
public  health.  They  help  to  mark  progress  along  the 
road.  The  late  Mr.  W.  E.  Forster,  speaking  at  the  meeting 
of  the  British  Association  at  Bradford  in  1873,  said  : — 

"  I  think  our  aims  in  this  direction  are  higher  than  they 
used  to  be.  "We  are  aiming  not  only  at  preventing  death, 
but  at  making  life  better  worth  living  by  making  it  healthy. 
And  we  no  longer  forget  that  in  fighting  our  battle  against 
disease  it  is  not  only  those  who  are  killed  that  are  merely 
to  be  considered,  but  also  the  wounded.  In  those  terrible 
inflictions  of  preventable  disease  throughout  the  country 
the  loss  of  life  is  very  sad ;  but  even  more  sorrowful  to 
my  mind  are  the  numbers  of  our  fellow-creatures — 
fellow-countrymen  and  women — who  are  doomed  to  strug- 
gle and  fight  the  battle  of  life  under  the  most  severe 
conditions  because  of  wounds  they  have  received  from 
preventable  diseases." 

While  Parliament  was  thus  legislating  on  several  matters 
considerably  influencing  the  sanitary  well-being  of  the 
people  of  the  metropolis,  the  powerful  economic  and  social 
forces  also  affecting  it  were  silently  and  uninterruptedly 
continuing  their  work  with  never-ceasing  energy. 

With  the  marvellous  industrial  developments  of  the  time, 
trade,  and  commerce,  and  businesses  of  various  kinds  and 
sorts  were  spreading  over  a  wider  area,  and  constantly 
claiming  accommodation  to  carry  them  on  ;  and  the  process 
continued  of  the  conversion  of  residential  houses  into  offices 
and  shops  and  warehouses  and  workplaces. 

The  increase  of  houses  in  other  parts  of  London,  rapid  as 
it  was,  barely  kept  pace  with  the  increase  of  population, 
whilst  it  had  practically  done  nothing  as  yet  to  relieve 
overcrowding  in  the  central  parts  of  London. 

The  excessive  density  of  the  population  was  a  great 
sanitary   evil. 

"It  is   a   well    established   law,"   wrote    the    Registrar 


OF   LONDON  243 

General  in  1872,  "that,  other  things  being  equal,  the 
insalubrity  of  a  place  increases  with  the  density  of  the 
population,  and  that  the  fevers  generated  in  crowded 
dwellings  have  a  tendency  to  spread  among  the  whole  of 
the  population." 

And  it  was  already  pretty  generally  recognised  by 
Medical  Officers  of  Health  that  the  chief  condition  affecting 
the  mortality  of  a  locality  was  the  density  of  population. 

The  Medical  Officers  of  Health  never  ceased  pointing 
out  the   evils  of  overcrowding. 

"  Overcrowding,"  wrote  the  Medical  Officer  of  Health  for 
Whitechapel  in  1877,  "  concerns  the  whole  community,  as 
is  strikingly  shown  by  the  spread  of  many  diseases  which 
are,  perhaps,  in  the  first  instance  endemic,  and  confined  to 
these  overcrowded  places,  but  which  soon  become  epidemic 
and  extend  over  large  areas,  attacking,  indiscriminately, 
all  classes." 

And  their  reports  are  full  of  instances  which  had  come 
under  their  observation. 

Thus,  in  1871,  the  Medical  Officer  of  Health  for  White- 
chapel wrote  : — 

"At  No.  13,  Goulston  Street,  I  found  in  the  back 
room  of  the  ground  floor,  closely  contiguous  to  three 
closets  and  a  dust  hole,  one  man,  six  women,  and  three 
children  sleeping  there.  The  room  measured  12  x  9  x  7  feet, 
giving  only  a  cubic  space  of  756  feet  for  ten  persons." 

He  mentioned  also  "  a  room  in  Cooper's  Court,  occupied 
by  man,  wife,  and  seven  children,  which  contained  about 
630  cubic  feet  of  space,  which  allows  only  70  feet  for 
each." 

And  numerous  other  cases  of  overcrowding  and  indecent 
occupation,  and  a  case  in  which  the  dead  body  of  a  child  had 
been  retained  in  a  room  for  fifteen  days. 

Passing  on  to  the  larger  aspects  of  this  dreadful 
overcrowding,  he  wrote  : — 

*'  It  is  manifest  that  persons  living  in  such  circumstances 
must  become  so  enfeebled  in  health  as  to  be  unfit  for  any 
employment  which  requires  much  physical  strength.  The 
mental  capacity  of  such  persons  is  also  so  low  as  to  prevent 


244       THE  SANITARY  EVOLUTION 

them  earning  a  livelihood  in  any  occupation  requiring  much 
thought,  and  the  consequence  is  an  increase  of  paupers  or 
of  criminals,  or  perhaps  of  both." 

"Consumption  and  the  whole  tubercular  class  of  disease 
are  chiefly  caused  by  the  defective  ventilation  of  dwelling- 
houses,  and  particularly  of  sleeping  rooms,  in  which  at 
least  one-third  of  one's  existence  is  passed." 

And  the  Medical  Officer  of  Health  for  Paddington,  in  his 
report  for  1871,  wrote  : — 

"  Serious  evils  of  physical  and  moral  character  are  found 
to  afflict  the  population  of  these  overcrowded  houses.  The 
want  of  fresh  air,  habitual  uncleanliness,  bad  washing 
accommodation,  with  other  unsanitary  conditions,  favour 
the  spread  of  contagion.  There  is  a  notable  increase  of 
tubercular  and  consumptive  maladies  in  our  large  cities,  and 
the  low  form  of  vitality  engendered  in  people  who  do  not 
enjoy  fresh  air,  leads  to  the  abuse  of  stimulants  and 
tobacco." 

In  1874  he  wrote  : — 

"...  Eighteen  per  cent,  of  the  whole  deaths — a  formid- 
able proportion — are  from  the  tubercular  class  of  diseases  : 
a  greater  proportion  than  zymotic.  The  206  deaths  from 
consumption  at  ages  between  20  and  60  show  that 
there  exists  some  general  cause  silently  working  great 
mischief  and  undermining  the  constitution  of  parents 
at  a  period  of  life  in  health  and  strength  when  they  can 
least  be  spared  from  their  families." 

And  he  added  : — 

"  Large  numbers  of  sickly  and  weakly  children  abound 
in  the  tenement-houses  of  our  thickly  populated  streets." 

Nor  were  the  homes  of  the  people  the  only  place  where 
overcrowding  worked  its  evil  will.  Many  children — how 
many  there  is  no  means  of  knowing — suffered  from  it  in 
the  schools  which  they  attended. 

The  following  extracts  from  reports  of  an  Inspector 
of  the  School  Board  *  present  a  vivid  picture  of  the  con- 
dition of  many  schools  in  existence  so  late  as  the  year 
1874. 

*  Final  Report  of  the  School  Board  for  London,  1870-1904. 


OF  LONDON  245 

1. School. 

"  This  is  a  wretched  place,  a  disgrace  to  the  metropolis. 
The  *  school '  is  held  in  an  old  dwelling-house  in  Clerken- 
well.  The  house  was  at  one  time  used  as  a  stable.  The 
approach  is  most  unwelcome,  and  on  entering  the  school- 
room (upstairs)  a  most  deplorable  picture  presented  itself 
to  the  eye.  Fifty  children  crowded  together  in  a  small, 
dingy,  shapeless  room  with  space  for  sixteen,  and  the 
window  and  door  carefully  closed — in  fact,  the  latter  and 
the  doors  downstairs  carefully  bolted.  The  sooner  this 
place  is  closed  the  better." 

2.  School. 

"  As  regards  the  accommodation  provided,  thirty-six 
young  children  were  sitting  in  an  upper  room  into  which 
the  rays  of  the  sun  on  a  bright  day  in  June  could  not  enter 
— twilight  in  mid-day." 

3.  School. 

"  It  would  be  impossible  for  words  to  describe  the  in- 
efficient state  of  this  so-called  school.  Eighty-two  children 
of  different  ages — boys  and  girls — huddled  together  in  a 
miserable,  badly  lighted,  badly  ventilated  room,  affording 
accommodation  for  twenty-three  at  the  utmost. 

"  No  books,  no  apparatus,  no  seats ;  floor  and  bare  walls  : 
the  *  teacher  '  an  aged  man,  standing  in  the  midst  of  a 
crowd  of  children  and  wielding  a  cane  to  keep  the 
'  scholars '  quiet,  and  thus  the  time  goes  on." 

4.  School. 

"  This  is  not  a  school — it  seems  a  baby-farm.  Seventeen 
children  in  a  small,  filthy  hovel.  There  were  four  infants 
a  few  months  old ;  one  lay  on  a  small  bed,  another  in  a 
small  cot,  and  the  two  others  in  positions  which  I  cannot 
here  describe.  The  little  ones  were  quite  naked.  The 
woman  who  pretends  to  look  after  this  '  school '  was 
engaged  in  a  back  yard  washing.  From  the  woman 
down  to  the  infant,  all  here  seemed  steeped  in  ignorance 
and  wretchedness." 

Here  is  a  case  reported  by  the  Medical  Officer  of  Health 
for  Whitechapel,  so  late  as  1880 : — 

"  A  schoolroom  at  11,  Pelham  Street,  Spitalfields ;  9  feet 


246       THE   SANITARY  EVOLUTION 

long  X  8  X  8.  There  were  twenty-five  children  aged 
4 — 7,  and  the  master  and  his  wife,  in  all  twenty-seven 
persons,  giving  21*3  cubic  feet  for  each." 

And  here  is  a  report  of  an  early  creche,  or  baby  farm, 
also  in  Whitechapel,  in  1879  : — 

"The  Sanitary  Inspector  found  on  the  ground  floor  of 
24,  Freeman  Street,  Spitalfields,  a  woman  and  twenty-five 
children  all  under  three.  They  were  left  in  charge  of  the 
occupier  of  the  room  from  nine  until  5.30  p.m.,  who  was 
paid  3d.  per  week  per  child.  The  room  was  15  feet  x  7  x  7, 
thus  affording  28  cubic  feet  of  space  per  child  ! !  The  room 
was  badly  ventilated,  there  were  neither  chairs  nor  seats, 
the  children  were  on  the  floor,  which  was  in  a  wet  and 
dirty  condition." 

The  other  causes  of  insanitation  were  also  flourishing. 
"  Noxious  businesses  "  of  various  kinds  continued  to 
pollute  the  atmosphere,  despite  legislation  against  them, 
and  the  existence  of  local  authorities  charged  with  the 
administration  of  that  legislation — a  permanent  pollution  all 
the  year  round,  and  from  which  there  was  no  getting  away. 

Very  commonly  the  arches  under  the  railways  were  used 
for  making  and  storing  artificial  manures,  the  smell  from 
which  was  intolerable. 

The  Medical  Officer  of  Health  for  St.  Mary,  Newington, 
1871  :— 

"  The  private  manure-mixing  yards  have  ever  been  the 
cause  of  much  annoyance  and  illness  to  those  living  in 
the  neighbourhood.  One  of  these,"  he  added,  "had  for 
years  been  complained  of." 

And  yet  the  Vestry  had  not  shut  it  up.  And  the  air 
was  tainted  and  vitiated  by  the  emanations  from  them,  the 
owners  having  no  vestige  of  regard  for  other  people's  health. 

Another  cause  of  insanitation  was  the  existence  of 
slaughter-houses  throughout  London,  in  the  most  crowded 
parts,  and  in  close  propinquity  to  dwelling-houses ;  indeed, 
in  the  yards  of  some  of  them  slaughter-houses,  with  all 
their  unpleasant  concomitants.  Cow-houses,  too,  also 
close  to  houses,  were  numerous,  and,  in  the  outer  parts  of 
London,  even  piggeries. 


OP  LONDON  247 

A  great  opportunity  was  lost  in  1874  for  greatly 
diminishing,  if  not  actually  terminating,  the  great 
"  nuisance  "  of  slaughter-houses. 

By  an  Act  passed  in  1844,  it  was  declared  absolutely 
illegal,  on  the  expiration  of  thirty  years  after  the  passing 
of  the  Act,  to  carry  on  certain  noxious  businesses  in  any 
premises  nearer  a  dwelling-house  than  50  feet,  or  nearer 
a  public  way  than  40  feet — the  business  of  slaughtering 
being  among  the  number.  Until  1851  there  was  no 
control  over  slaughter-houses  ;  any  one  could  conduct  a 
slaughter-house  who  pleased,  subject  only  to  the  common 
law  as  to  doing  anything  which  might  be  considered  a 
nuisance.* 

The  Metropolitan  Market  Act,  passed  in  that  year, 
required  that  all  slaughter-houses  should  be  licensed  by 
the  justices,  thus  establishing  some  form  of  control  over 
them. 

When,  in  1874,  the  expiration  of  the  thirty  years  drew 
nigh,  doubts  were  raised  by  those  interested  in  their  con- 
tinuance as  to  the  interpretation  of  the  Act  of  1844.  The 
Select  Committee,  which  was  investigating  the  subject  of 
"  Noxious  Businesses,"  stated  that  no  evidence  had  been 
given  before  it  to  show  that  any  of  these  trades  when 
properly  conducted  affect  the  health  of  the  persons  living 
near  the  premises,  and  Parliament,  accepting  this  view, 
passed  an  Act  which  undid  the  enactment  of  1844,  and 
allowed  slaughter-houses  to  be  continued  indefinitely  under 
license.  At  the  same  time  it  conferred  on  the  central 
authority,  the  Metropolitan  Board  of  Works,  power  to 
make  bye-laws  with  respect  to  certain  noxious  trades. 

And  so  this  fertile  cause  of  insanitation — slaughter- 
houses— was  perpetuated  to  the  present  time. 

There  was,  however,  a  far  more  general  and  potent  cause 
of  disease  and  death,  and  general  detriment  to  the  public 
health,  than  the  pollution  of  the  atmosphere  by  noxious 
trades,  and  that  was  the  reckless  scattering  abroad  of 
infectious  or  contagious  diseases  by  persons  afflicted  with 
or  in  contact  with  such  diseases. 
*  See  Select  Committee  on  Noxious  Businesses,  1873.    P.P.,  vol.  x. 


248       THE   SANITARY  EVOLUTION 

The  Metropolitan  Asylums  Board  had  already  erected 
hospitals,  and  were  doing  a  vast  amount  of  good  and  pre- 
venting the  spread  of  disease. 

But  by  the  people  themselves  the  seeds  of  infection 
were  scattered  broadcast. 

Dr.  Simon,  the  Medical  Officer  to  the  Privy  Council, 
in  his  Eeport  of  1865,  wrote  : — 

"As  to  contagions  already  current  in  the  country, 
practically  any  diseased  person  scatters  his  infection  broad- 
cast, almost  where  he  will — typhus  or  scarlatina,  typhoid 
or  smallpox,  or  diphtheria,  .  .  .  the  present  unlimited 
license  seems  urgently  to  demand  restriction." 

But  the  license  to  kill  remained  without  restriction, 
except  that  of  entering  a  public  conveyance.* 

As  the  Medical  Officer  of  Health  for  St.  Mary,  Newing- 
ton,  wrote  in  1871  : — 

"  How  many  are  the  ways  in  which  the  spread  of ' 
contagious  disease  is,  as  it  were,  invited,  no  one  knows 
better  than  a  sanitary  officer.  Washing,  mangling,  needle- 
work, go  on  in  many  an  infected  house  ;  children,  aye 
adults  also,  the  sick  and  the  sound,  mix  indiscriminately. 
I  have  even  known  the  exhibition,  as  a  sight,  of  the  corpse 
of  a  smallpox  patient.  ..." 

And  the  Medical  Officer  of  Health  for  Paddington  called 
attention  (1873-4)  to— 

"  The  extreme  indifference  displayed  with  regard  to 
these  diseases  (measles,  &c.),  by  many  of  the  lower  and 
middle  class  is  an  unmistakable  sign  of  an  ignorant 
belief  that  they  are  natural  events ;  and  such  a  belief 
leads  to  a  carelessness  of  management  much  to  be 
condemned. 

"...  The  working  classes  generally  visit  freely  during 
sickness,  allowing  their  clothes  to  become  saturated  with 
contagious  poison." 

The  Vestries  and  District  Boards  did  do  a  certain  amount 

of  disinfection  ;    but    more    than    three    years    after    the 

Sanitary  Act  of  1866  was  passed,  in  twenty-nine  districts 

(out   of  thirty-eight)  no  proper  disinfecting  establishment 

'■''  See  Sections  25  and  26  of  the  Sanitary  Act,  1866. 


OF   LONDON  249 

in  accordance  with  the  requirements  of  the  law  had  been 
provided  (Strand,  1869-70). 

The  Medical  Officer  of  Health  for  St.  James',  West- 
minster, pointed  out  (1870-1)  that  in  London  there  was — 

"  No  legal  obligation  on  the  part  of  the  head  of  a  family 
or  landlord,  or  a  medical  man,  to  declare  the  presence  of 
scarlet  fever  to  the  sanitary  authority.  The  consequence 
is,  that  long  before  any  knowledge  of  the  existence  of  the 
disease  has  been  obtained  by  the  Medical  Officer  of  Health 
the  disease  has  spread  far  and  wide.  If  it  were  not  so 
melancholy,  one  feels  inclined  to  deride  the  folly  and 
ignorance  of  a  so-called  civilised  and  enlightened  nation 
allowing  such  a  cruel  and  terrible  scourge  as  this  to  pass 
over  the  country  without  any  attempt  to  control  it." 

"In  sixteen  years  we  have  lost  479  persons  by  scarlet 
fever  in  St.  James'.  Where  one  person  dies,  10-20  get 
it  and  get  well.  It  is  vain  to  calculate  the  pecuniary 
expense  of  such  a  curse,  but  every  one  can  make  something 
like  an  approximation  to  the  cost  of  such  a  waste  of  human 
life,  and  form  an  opinion  of  the  vast  benefit  of  legislation 
that  should  put  a  stop  to  this  disease." 

The  Medical  Officer  of  Health  for  Paddington  referred 
(1876)  to  the  disastrous  results  of  cases  of  infectious  illness 
not  being  notified  to  the  sanitary  authority,  and  so  enabling 
precautions  being  taken  to  stamp  out  the  infection. 

"  Such  a  state  of  matters,  with  the  annual  huge  mortality 
consequent  thereon,  will  continue  until  an  educated  people, 
conscious  of  its  duties  and  jealous  of  its  rights,  demands 
from  a  tardy  executive  the  intervention  of  the  legislature 
to  prevent  it." 

The  Vestries  and  District  Boards  were  gradually  doing 
a  good  deal  of  useful  work  of  the  sort  which  did  not  much 
conflict  with  private  interests.  The  great  main  drainage 
works  of  the  Central  Authority  had  enabled  them  to  improve 
and  extend  their  sewerage  and  drainage  works,  and  from 
1856  up  to  March,  1872,  they  had  borrowed  from  the 
Metropohtan  Board  of  Works  ^6767,000  for  this  pur- 
pose;*   and    the   total    length    of   brick   and  pipe  sewer 

=■=  See  Eeport  of  Metropolitan  Board,  1871-2. 


250       THE   SANITARY  EVOLUTION 

which  they  constructed  in  that  period  was  very  close 
upon  700  miles. 

"  The  large  amount  which  has  been  expended  on  works 
of  sewerage  and  paving,  shows  that  the  local  authorities 
in  the  metropolis  have  not  been  unmindful  of  the  require- 
ments of  their  several  districts." 

St.  Giles'  reported  in  1872  that  its  sewerage  was  very 
complete,  "not  a  single  street  or  court  being  without  a  sewer." 

St.  Marylebone  reported  in  1877  : — 

"^33,500  has  been  spent  in  new  sewers  in  the  parish 
in  the  last  three  years,  and  ^£7,000  is  to  be  spent.  Over 
three  miles  of  new  sewers  were  constructed.  These  are 
large  items  in  our  parochial  expenditure,  but  the  fact 
cannot  be  ignored  that  the  sewerage  of  the  parish  had 
got  into  a  disgraceful  and  indeed  dangerous  condition. 

"  In  some  of  the  finest  streets  and  squares  of  the 
parish  the  sewers  were  but  little  better  than  elongated 
cesspools." 

Bermondsey  reported,  in  1872,  that  the  entire  district 
was  drained  into  low  level  sewers,  all  open  sewers,  tidal 
and  other  ditches,  and  cesspools  having  been  abolished; 
;05,2OO  expended  in  widening  and  improving  certain 
streets,  £92,000  spent  in  sewerage,  paving,  and  other 
improvements. 

St.  Mary,  Newington,  reported  in  1871  that  the  whole 
of  the  open  sewers  and  tidal  ditches  had  been  covered 
over ;  that  the  drainage  was  in  a  satisfactory  condition, 
and  that  within  a  few  pounds  of  £400,000  had  been  spent 
since  1856  in  various  parish  works  and  maintenance. 

In  the  Wandsworth  district  (1873-4)  :— 

"  The  enormous  sanitary  works  carried  on  by  the  Metro- 
politan Board  of  Works  and  the  Board  of  the  District 
have,  by  drying  the  soil  and  altering  the  waterlogged 
condition  which  formerly  prevailed,  completely  changed 
the  sanitary  aspect  of  the  locality." 

Not  all  the  work  reported  as  done,  however,  was  done 
as  satisfactorily  as  was  to  be  desired. 

Thus  the  Medical  OlB&cer  of  Health  for  St.  James', 
Westminster,  wrote  (1871-2) : — 


OF  LONDON  251 

"  Sewers  and  drains  being  out  of  sight  admit  of  a  great 
amount  of  *  scamping  '  work. 

**  Speaking  from  experience,  some  of  the  local  sewers  in 
St.  James'  are  specimens,  I  hope  unique,  of  the  extent 
to  which  'scamping'  can  be  carried." 

And  the  Medical  Officer  of  Health  for  Shoreditch  wrote 
(1878)  that— 

**  Some  of  the  new  drains  (being  so  badly  laid)  are  more 
dangerous  than  the  old." 

The  arrangements  for  water  supply  were  also  in 
some  few  parishes,  in  process  of  years,  being  slowly 
improved. 

In  Lambeth,  in  1872,  646  houses  without  proper  water 
supply  were  provided  with  it ;    and  in   1873,  804  houses. 

Bead  one  way,  this  was  satisfactory.  Bead  the  other, 
it  was  a  revelation  of  the  number  of  houses  in  Lambeth 
which  had  been  left  until  1873  without  that  great  essential 
of  health — a  "  proper  water  supply." 

A  large  amo'unt  of  street  paving  had  been  done, 
and  a  few  small  street  improvements  had  been  carried 
out. 

Considering  the  very  limited  staff  of  Inspectors  which 
it  suited  the  policy  and  purposes  of  the  Vestries  to 
appoint,  a  fair  amount  of  sanitary  inspection  was  done 
in  some  parishes  and  districts. 

The  striking  fact  about  the  inspections  made  is  the 
very  high  proportion  of  houses  in  which  the  sanitation 
was  defective. 

In  Bermondsey,  in  1879,  where  1,577  houses  and  premises 
were  inspected,  1,495  notices  were  served. 

In  Limehouse,  in  1879,  1,411  houses  were  inspected;  and 
1,070  orders  for  sanitary  amendments  issued. 

In  Shoreditch,  where  there  were  15,500  houses,  the  two 
Sanitary  Inspectors  appear  to  have  done  a  lot  of  useful 
sanitary  work.  In  1877-8,  5,465  separate  nuisances 
dangerous  to  health  were  abated. 

If  anything  like  a  similar  proportion  prevailed  generally 
throughout  London,  the  housing  of  its  huge  population 
was  indeed  in  a  dreadful  state. 


252        THE   SANITARY   EVOLUTION 

In  some  ways  the  local  authorities  were  awakening  to 
their  responsibilities,  and  beginning  to  avail  themselves 
of  some  of  the  provisions  placed  by  Parliament  at  their 
disposal. 

In  Paddington,  St.  Giles',  and  Eotherhithe,  the  Vestries 
had  adopted  the  Baths  and  "Washhouses  Act  of  1846,  and 
thus  helped  to  promote  habits  of  cleanliness,  and  to  diminish 
some  of  the  insanitary  evils  consequent  on  the  tenements 
being  turned  into  temporary  wash-rooms. 

And  in  St.  James'  (Westminster)  and  Lambeth,  mortu- 
aries had  been  provided,  which,  in  some  cases,  at  any  rate, 
obviated  some  of  the  insanitary  evils  consequent  on  the 
retention  of  dead  bodies  for  long  periods  in  single-roomed 
tenements  where  death  had  been  caused  by  contagious  or 
infectious  diseases. 

More  action  was  being  taken,  too,  as  regards  the  dis- 
infection of  rooms  where  there  had  been  cases  of  infectious 
disease.  Thus  in  Lambeth  in  1877-8,  824  houses  were 
disinfected. 

Here  and  there,  too,  the  owners  of  noxious  trades 
were  being  compelled  to  adopt  methods  rendering  their 
businesses  less  insanitary  and  objectionable  to  their  neigh- 
bourhoods. 

The  Local  Government  Board  had  caused  an  elaborate 
inquiry  to  be  made  by  Dr.  Ballard  as  to — 

"  '  In  what  measure  and  by  what  means  nuisances  and 
injury  to  health  from  offensive  businesses  might  be 
avoided,'  and  the  report  led  to  quite  a  satisfactory 
result. 

"It  showed  that  by  the  application  of  such  knowledge 
as  was  at  command,  all  or  nearly  all  businesses  that  are 
in  a  serious  degree  offensive  might  be  carried  on  either 
without  offence,  or  with  such  important  reduction  of 
offence,  as  should  make  it  tolerable,  or  even  trivial."  * 

In  Fulham  several  piggeries  were  closed  by  law;  not 
without  regret,  apparently,  for  the  Medical  Officer  of 
Health  stated  in  his  report : — 

"It  certainly  is  very  hard  on  the  pig  keepers  individually, 

*  P.P.  1878-9.    Beport  of  Local  Government  Board,  vol.  xxix.,  p.  xiii. 


OF   LONDON  253 

but  it  is  in  accordance  with  the  recognised  law  of  civilisa- 
tion, that  the  interests  of  the  few  must  be  sacrificed  to 
the  welfare  of  the  many." 

Upon  one  course  of  action  all  the  Medical  Officers  of 
Health  were  in  agreement — the  absolute  necessity  of 
inspection  and  supervision  of  the  houses  of  the  people. 
In  season  and  out  of  season  they  advised  it,  and  urged 
it  as  the  most  essential  and  the  most  useful  of  all  duties. 

In  support  of  these  views  they  could  point  to  the 
results  of  inspection  and  supervision  in  the  registered 
Common  Lodging  Houses. 

In  the  parish  of  Spitalfields  (in  Whitechapel,  1880) 
there  were  109  of  these  houses  containing  454  rooms 
registered  to  accommodate  3,992  lodgers.  The  class 
of  persons  occupying  them  were,  notoriously,  the  very 
lowest. 

"  We  failed  to  learn  that  any  respectable  mechanic 
with  his  wife  and  family  ever  applied  at  these  houses 
for  lodging  accommodation.  Yet,"  reported  the  Sanitary 
Inspector  (1880),  "we  discovered  no  case  of  overcrowding. 
The  bedding  was  clean ;  the  yards  and  closets  were  in  a 
good  sanitary  condition ;  there  was  a  good  water  supply, 
and  the  walls  and  ceilings  of  the  houses  were  clean." 

If  these  results  were  obtainable  in  dealing  with  the 
worst  classes,  in  the  overcrowded  parts  of  Whitechapel, 
a  fortiori,  inspection  and  supervision  would  have  been 
productive  of  similar  benefits  among  the  general  tenement 
population. 

The  Medical  Officer  of  Health  for  St.  George-in-the- 
East  referred  to  the  low  mortality  in  model  lodging- 
houses,  where  also  there  was  supervision. 

"  There  we  find  good  sound  dwellings,  &c.,  &c.  No 
overcrowding  is  permitted,  only  a  certain  number  in 
family  being  accepted  as  tenants.  Cleanliness  on  their 
part  is  expected — enforced  if  necessary — or  a  notice  to  quit 
is  speedily  given." 

While  thus  recommending  inspection,  supervision,  and 
compulsory  rules,  another  view  was  also  expressed.* 

*  By  the  Medical  Officer  of  Health  for  Whitechapel,  1878. 


254       THE    SANITARY  EVOLUTION 

**  As  laws  have  been  enacted  for  the  abatement  of 
overcrowding,  it  is  easy  to  say :  '  let  those  in  authority 
put  them  in  force ' ;  but  I  much  fear  unless  the  question 
is  taken  up  with  a  spirit  of  love  towards  the  poorer  and 
more  ignorant  classes  by  the  upper  and  middle  classes, 
and  measures  adopted  to  give  instruction  to  the  poor  in 
matters  concerning  their  physical  well-being,  the  existing 
state  of  things  will  long  continue." 

"  No  class  will  become  civilised  by  being  left  to  them- 
selves, as  unfortunately  is  the  case  in  the  numerous  back 
slums  of  London,  but  improvement,  physically  and 
socially,  can  only  be  effected  by  a  superior  class  mixing 
and  associating  with  a  class  below  them." 

The  Medical  Officer  of  Health  for  Poplar  wrote : — 

"  The  poor  want  more  than  model  dwellings,  more 
than  warmth,  food  and  clothing;  they  want  humanity, 
and  the  knowledge  of  the  laws  governing  health." 

Unfortunately  those  remedies  were,  at  best,  a  matter 
of  considerable  time,  and  improvement  could  be  but  of 
slow  growth.  Immediate  measures  were  required  to  cope 
with  the  appalling  evils,  and  for  the  house-owners,  even 
more  than  for  the  unfortunate  tenants,  were  supervision 
and  compulsory  rules  requisite. 

But  not  one  tithe  of  the  Vestries  and  District  Boards 
would  enforce  against  owners  the  regulations  under  the 
35th  Section  of  the  Sanitary  Act  of  1866. 

Though  something  was  being  done  as  regarded  the 
inspection  of  houses  and  the  repair  of  sanitary  defects, 
hardly  any  progress  could  be  said  to  have  been  made 
for  the  improvement  of  the  dwellings  of  the  poor. 

The  Artisans'  and  Labourers'  Dwellings  Act  (Torrens) 
of  1868  was  to  a  small  extent  being  made  use  of. 

In  some  parishes  houses  considered  by  the  Vestry  or 
District  Board  as  unfit  for  human  habitation  had  been 
closed,  and  were  only  allowed  to  be  reopened  upon  proper 
repairs  having  been  carried  out.  In  other  cases  where 
no  amount  of  repairs  could  put  the  house  into  habitable 
condition,  the  landlord  was  directed  to  pull  down  the 
buildings  (without  his  receiving  any  compensation),   and, 


OF   LONDON  255 

in  default,  the  Vestry  could  pull  it  down  at  his  expense. 
The  site  remained  unoccupied,  until  the  owner  or  landlord 
used  it  again  for  building  purposes,  or  sold  it  to  some 
one  else. 

In  St.  Giles'  (1873-4)  the  District  Board  has  been  en- 
abled under  the  Act  to  enforce  "  considerable  improve- 
ments in  and  immediately  adjoining  the  worst  parts  of 
St.  Giles'."    (Houses  in  yards  and  courts  were  demolished.) 

In  St.  Luke  the  total  number  of  houses  "pulled  down 
or  closed  "  amounted  by  the  year  1875  to  104.* 

In  Holborn  the  Board  had  been — 

"  Applying  or  threatening  to  apply  the  Act  to  houses 
that  could  be  fairly  subjected  to  it.  Besides  having  150 
houses,  chiefly  belonging  to  one  owner,  put  into  a  complete 
sanitary  repair,  it  has  been  actually  applied  to  136  houses ; 
70  thoroughly  repaired,  40  demolished,  26  to  be  rebuilt, 
and  10  to  be  closed." 

There  were  many  difficulties  in  using  the  Act.  Notice  of 
houses  being  unfit  had  to  be  given  to  "owners."  A  certain 
case  in  Chelsea  was  mentioned  where — 

"  There  were  freeholders,  lessees,  under-lessees,  and  sub- 
lessees, and  their  trustees  and  mortgagees,  and  besides  there 
were  the  occupiers." 

But  in  the  great  majority  of  parishes  or  districts  no  steps 
were  taken  under  the  Act.  The  Act  did  not  give  any  com- 
pensation to  the  owners  of  condemned  property,  as  Parlia- 
ment had  declared  by  it  that  compensation  should  not  be 
given  to  those  who  permitted  their  property  to  fall  into 
such  a  state,  whilst  at  the  same  time  extracting  the 
fullest  benefit  from  it. 

To  such  a  doctrine  there  was,  of  course,  the  strongest 
hostility  by  all  those  who  held  the  opinion  that  a  man 
might  do  as  he  liked  with  his  own,  and  extract  from  it 
the  uttermost  farthing  regardless  of  the  infliction  of  disease 
and  suffering  and  death  upon  those  who  were  so  unfortu- 
nate as  to  become  his  tenants,  and  reckless  as  to  the  injury 
his  action  was  inflicting  upon  the  community  at  large. 
And  so : — 

*  P.P.  1875,  vol.  Ixiv. 


256       THE   SANITARY  EVOLUTION 

"  The  reluctance  of  the  local  authorities  to  take  away  a 
man's  property  was  insuperable,  and  consequently  no  very 
great  demolition  took  place." 

The  Medical  Officer  of  Health  for  St.  Pancras  wrote 
(1876)  :— 

"  The  Act  is  almost  inoperative.  The  highly  penal  nature 
of  this  statute,  which  in  the  event  of  demolition  gives  no 
compensation  to  the  owner  whose  property  is  destroyed, 
makes  Courts  of  Justice  extend  every  possible  leniency  to 
the  owner.  Moreover  it  does  not  contemplate  any  scheme 
for  the  reconstruction  of  the  houses  demolished,  or  other 
provision  for  population  displaced.  ..." 

And  the  Medical  Officer  of  Health  for  St.  James', 
Westminster,  where  no  action  was  taken  under  it, 
wrote  (1872-3)  :— 

"It  is  scarcely  necessary  to  say  that  such  an  Act  could 
not  be  acted  upon  without  the  grossest  injustice  to  the 
owners  of  property,  and  the  infliction  of  the  greatest 
hardship  on  the  poor." 

But  there  was  another  view,  much  nearer  justice,  which 
was  given  expression  to  before  the  Select  Committee 
in  1881. 

"  An  owner  of  property  who  allowed  his  property  to  fall 
into  such  a  miserable  state  as  to  be  unfit  for  human  habita- 
tion is  not  a  man  that  deserves  the  slightest  consideration 
of  any  kind  from  Parliament — he  ought  to  be  treated  rather 
as  a  criminal  than  an  owner  of  property.  To  compensate 
him  is  a  mistake  entirely." 

And  the  Medical  Officer  of  Health  for  Whitechapel  said  it 
was  his  opinion  that — 

**  If  the  landlord  leaves  his  house  in  a  very  bad  state,  and 
will  not  listen  to  any  representations,  he  ought  not  to  be 
paid  by  the  public  when  he  is  creating  a  nuisance." 

The  Act  of  1868  having  helped  so  little  to  a  solution  of 
the  housing  problem,  and  the  matter  being  one  of  ever- 
increasing  urgency,  an  effort  was  made  to  deal  with  it 
in  1875,  when  a  Bill  for  facilitating  the  improvement  of 
the  working  classes  in  large  towns  was  introduced  into 
Parliament  by  Sir  K.  A.  Cross,  and  was  carried. 


OF  LONDON  257 

It  often  happened  that  in  some  of  the  worst  slums,  the 
houses  were  the  property  of  several  owners,  and  it  was  not 
therefore  in  the  power  of  any  one  owner  to  make  such 
alterations  as  were  necessary  for  the  public  health. 

The  Act*  of  1875  contemplated— 

"  Dealing  with  whole  areas,  where  the  houses  are  so 
structurally  defective  as  to  be  incapable  of  repair,  and 
so  ill-placed  with  reference  to  each  other  as  to  require,  to 
bring  them  up  to  a  proper  sanitary  standard,  nothing 
short  of  demolition  and  reconstruction.  Accordingly,  in 
this  case,  the  local  authority,  armed  with  compulsory 
powers,  at  once  enters  as  a  purchaser,  and  on  completion 
of  the  purchase  proceeds  forthwith  to  a  scheme  of 
reconstruction."  f 

An  official  representation,  that  the  houses  within  a 
particular  area  were  unfit  for  human  habitation,  was  to 
be  made  to  the  Central  Authority,  the  Metropolitan  Board 
of  "Works,  by  the  Medical  Officer  of  Health  of  a  Vestry 
or  District  Board,  and  the  Metropolitan  Board  was  em- 
powered to  declare  the  same  to  be  an  unhealthy  area, 
and  to  make  an  improvement  scheme  in  respect  of  it. 
If  it  decided  that  an  improvement  scheme  ought  to  be 
made,  it  should  forthwith  make  such  a  scheme,  which, 
after  sundry  formalities,  was  embodied  in  a  Provisional 
Order  which  had  to  be  confirmed  by  Parliament. 

The  compensation  to  be  paid  for  the  property  so  taken 
might  be  settled  by  agreement  between  the  Metropolitan 
Board  of  Works  and  the  owner,  but  where  no  agreement 
was  arrived  at,  an  arbitrator  was  to  be  appointed  by  the 
Secretary  of  State.  The  arbitrator  was  to  assess  the  com- 
pensation at  the  fair  market  value  of  the  lands  concerned, 
due  regard  being  had  to  the  nature  and  then  condition  of 
the  property,  but  no  additional  allowance  was  to  be  made 
in  respect  of  the  compulsory  purchase  of  the  area. 

The  value  settled,  and  the  land  having  passed  into  the 
hands  of  the  MetropoHtan  Board  of  Works,  the  obligation 

*  "  The  Artizans'  and  Labourers'  Dwellings  Improvement  Act," 
38  and  39  Vic.  cap.  36. 

f  See  Royal  Commission  Eeport,  1884. 

18 


258       THE   SANITARY  EVOLUTION 

was  imposed  on  that  body  of  pulling  down  the  buildings, 
and  selling,  or  letting,  the  cleared  ground  for  the  erection 
of  improved  dwellings  for  the  same  number  of  people. 

The  hardship  of  working  class  and  poorer  persons  being 
turned  out  of  houses  and  no  other  accommodation  being 
provided  for  them  was  formally  recognised  in  this  matter, 
and  the  scheme  had  to  provide  for  the — 

"Accommodation  of  at  the  least  as  many  persons  of  the 
working  class  as  may  be  displaced  in  the  area  ...  in 
suitable  dwellings  which,  unless  there  are  any  reasons  to 
the  contrary,  shall  be  situate  within  the  limits  of  the  same 
area,  or  in  the  vicinity  thereof.  It  shall  also  provide  for 
proper  sanitary  arrangements." 

The  Act  was  intended  to  relieve  owners  of  such  property 
without  loss  or  benefit,  and  several  representations  as  to  un- 
healthy areas  were  made  to  the  Metropolitan  Board.  The 
facts  stated  in  these  representations  and  subsequently 
brought  out  in  evidence  in  the  public  inquiries  held,  were 
illuminating  as  to  the  terrible  depths  which  the  conditions 
of  life  of  numbers  of  the  people  had  been  allowed  to  reach, 
without  the  intervention  of  the  law,  or  the  staying  hand  of 
the  freeholder,  lessees,  or  sub-lessees,  who  derived  financial 
profit  from  the  property. 

The  Medical  Officer  of  Health  for  Limehouse  described 
one  of  them  : — 

"  The  area,  though  not  large,  contained  abominations 
sufficient  for  an  area  three  times  its  size.  Here  were 
crowded  houses,  built  no  one  knows  when ;  how  they 
stood  was  a  marvel,  their  walls  bulged,  their  floors  sunk, 
an  indescribable  musty  odour  pervaded  them ;  water  sup- 
ply, drainage,  closets,  all  were  bad,  and  in  my  opinion, 
nothing  could  remedy  such  a  state  of  things  short  of 
pulling  down  the  rickety  buildings." 

"The  area  is  inhabited  by  about  800  people,  and  the 
death-rate  is  about  36  per  1,000." 

In  another  of  these  schemes,  in  one  Court  (Sugar  Loaf 
Court)  the  death-rate  was  105  "2  per  1,000. 

The  Medical  Officer  of  Health  for  the  Strand  gave  a 
report  on  the  sanitary  state  of  Bedfordbury : — 


OF  LONDON  259 

"  Bedfordbury  is  the  black  spot  of  this  parish.  It  and  the 
contiguous  courts  are  a  Httle  over  three  acres.  Population 
census  of  1871  =  2,163.  It  is  a  long  narrow  street  of  47 
houses  with  courts  leading  out  of  it  on  either  side.  Some 
of  the  courts  are  blind  and  very  narrow,  thus  rendering 
light  and  air  difficult  of  access. 

'*  These  47  houses  are  so  old  and  dilapidated  that  it  is 
quite  impossible  to  make  them  fit  and  proper  habitation 
for  the  poor  to  live  in. 


"  Even  this  bright  and  sunny  morning  the  staircases  were 
so  dark  that  you  could  not  see  a  single  stair — there  was  not 
a  scrap  of  ventilation,  and  no  means  of  getting  light  or  air 
to  them. 

"No.  37  is  occupied  by  33  people  living  in  six  rooms;  on 
the  second  floor  the  two  rooms  are  tenanted  by  two  families, 
respectively  five  and  seven,  and  the  third  floor  by  two 
families  of  six  each." 

No.  41  was  very  similar.  "  These  two  houses  may  be 
taken  as  a  type  of  the  condition  of  the  houses  in  Bedford- 
bury." 

"  Off  this  street  were  various  Courts,  one  of  them  of  six 
three-roomed  houses;  its  width  three  feet  five.  Another 
Court — seven  houses,  20  rooms  in  all — population  71.  All  of 
them  apparently  as  bad,  or  worse,  than  those  in  the  street 
— miserable  hovels,  the  birthplace  of  disease  and  vice, 
and  centres  for  infectious  diseases,  which  are  likely  to 
spread  through  the  whole  community." 

The  births  and  deaths  were  almost  equivalent.  In  1872, 
there  were  92  births  and  95  deaths.  In  1873,  there  were 
108  births  and  108  deaths. 

"  In  1874,  there  were  95  deaths  and  only  82  births.  The 
deaths  are  exclusive  of  those  people  who  have  been  re- 
moved from  the  neighbourhood  and  gone  elsewhere  to 
die,  either  in  the  hospital  or  the  workhouse,  where  a 
great  many  people  at  the  present  time  do  go  to  die." 

Of  the  overcrowded  rooms  he  says  : — 

"Here    legions  of    crimes  and  legions  of  vices    unite, 


260       THE  SANITARY  EVOLUTION 

fostering  diseases  of  body,  weakened  intellect,  and  utter 
destruction  of  the  soul ;  leading  inevitably  to  a  career  of 
wickedness  and  sin." 

Confirmatory  of  the  Medical  Officer  of  Health's  descrip- 
tion, was  that  given  in  a  memorial  to  the  Metropolitan 
Board  by  118  persons :  "  The  Clergy,  Medical  Men, 
Bankers,  Residents,  Professional  men,  and  Traders  of  the 
parish  of  St.  Martin-in-the-Fields,  in  support  of  a  scheme 
of  improvement." 

"Bedfordbury,  with  its  swarming,  ill-built,  badly  venti- 
lated, rotten,  inappropriate,  unsavoury  tenements,  has  seemed 
to  us  a  very  forcing  pit  of  immorality." 

"In  it  there  are  797  people  living  on  one  acre  of 
land." 

"  There  is  a  very  large  number  of  interests  to  be  paid  for. 
There  is  first  the  freeholder  ;  then  there  is  the  first  lessee ; 
then  there  are  numbers  of  under-lessees,  and  all  the  trades 
of  those  little  shops,  and  they  ought  all  to  get  something." 

And  another  area  was  the  "  Great  "Wild  Street  Scheme," 
in  the  parish  of  St.  Giles'-in-the-Fields.* 

"  This  area  has  long  been  a  hot-bed  of  disease.  It  con- 
tains about  5^  acres,  and  227  houses  stand  upon  it  inhabited 
by  3,897  persons. 

Great  Wild  Street  58  houses  containing  926  persons. 
Drury  Lane  31         ,,  ,,        425         ,, 

Princes'  Street        14        ,,  ,,        315         ,, 

Wild  Court  14        „  „        346 

"  Many  of  the  courts  and  passages  are  approached  by  a 
narrow  passage  under  a  house  at  either  end  which  renders 
ventilation  very  defective.  Some  of  the  houses  are  built 
close  together  and  have  dark  passages  and  staircases,  others 
have  no  back  yards,  and  their  sanitary  arrangements  are 
placed  in  the  basement.  Health  under  such  circumstances 
is  impossible.  This  part  of  St.  Giles'  has  long  been  noted 
for  its  heavy  sick  and  death  rates,  especially  from  diseases 
of  the  respiratory  and  pulmonary  organs,  and  from  typhus 
fever  and  other  zymotic  disorders  in  their  most  contagious 
forms."  t 
*  1877,  24th  March,     f  Inquiry  by  Cubitt  NichoUs,  March  24, 1877. 


OF  LONDON  261 

Dr.  Lovett,  the  Medical  Officer  of  Health,  stated  that 
diseases  were  very  rife  in  it,  and  a  very  high  rate  of 
mortality  as  compared  with  the  number  of  cases. 

And  he  added,  "  The  district  is  a  nest  of  zymotic  diseases 
of  the  most  contagious  kind.  In  1874,  27  cases  of  typhus 
were  sent  to  Stockwell  Hospital.  This  state  of  things 
cannot  be  dealt  with  under  Torrens*  Act.  The  houses  are 
built  so  close  together,  the  people  are  so  huddled  to- 
gether .  .  .  you  must  make  a  clean  sweep  of  the 
buildings." 

Another  of  these  insanitary  areas  was  Pear  Tree  Court, 
in  Clerkenwell,  "  consisting  of  small  tenements  of  an 
exceedingly  inferior  description.  All  are  more  or  less 
calculated  to  engender  disease  and  filth.  The  condition 
of  the  property  has  been  such  as  to  be  a  reproach  to  the 
neighbourhood. 

"  Occupied  by  the  very  poorest  of  the  community.  When 
disease  made  its  appearance  it  has  been  fostered  and  en- 
gendered and  continued  by  the  state  in  which  the  property 
and  its  surroundings  have  been — the  death-rate  is  nearly 
double  of  that  which  prevails  over  the  whole  parish. 

**  Some  of  the  tenements  are  of  the  most  wretched  descrip- 
tion— some  constructed  of  lath  and  plaster — some  wooden 
houses — the  floors  rotted  partly  by  the  cisterns,  partly  by 
rain  coming  in. 

"In  some  cases  the  sanitary  convenience  is  in  the  very 
rooms  themselves — also  the  water-butt — thereby  engender- 
ing and  perpetuating  the  worst  kind  of  zymotic  disease  :  the 
chosen  home  of  fever  and  also  of  smallpox. 

"An  entire  absence  of  ventilation. 

"...  When  we  come  to  those  occupying  only  one  room 
each,  and  remembering  that  in  many  of  these  rooms  the 
closet,  the  water-butt,  the  water  supply,  and  everything  else 
was  contained  in  the  room  itself,  and  that  there  was  no  pro- 
vision for  manure,  ashes,  or  refuse  of  any  kind,  you  can 
easily  conceive  what  a  wretched  state  of  things  that  presents. 
On  the  average  there  were  2  "80  persons  per  room  per- 
manently occupying  them.  So  it  cannot  be  wondered  at  an 
outbreak  of    the    zymotic  disease  finding  a  resting-place 


262       THE   SANITARY  EVOLUTION 

there,  and  that  such  a  locality  becomes  a  plague  spot  in  the 
neighbourhood,  and  extends  its  ravages  thence  into  healthier 
neighbourhoods." 

Some  of  the  houses  the  Medical  Officer  of  Health  had 
known  to  be  in  the  same  state  for  the  last  36  years. 

"...  An  ill-constructed,  unhealthy  warren;  "  some  were 
"  regular  old  shanties — you  could  hardly  find  anything  like 
those  in  the  metropolis,  they  are  worth  looking  at  as  a 
curiosity." 

"  Some  in  Clerkenwell  Close  are  large  and  very  old  wooden 
houses,  all  tumbledown.  There  is  no  straight  line  in  roof  or 
windows — the  windows  are  like  cabin  windows." 

One  more  case  is  worth  giving  details  about,  as  it  is  one 
of  those  rare  cases  in  which  one  gets  a  more  continuous 
account  of  the  effects  of  slum  ownership  than  is  usually 
accessible.* 

This  was  the  Little  Coram  Street  scheme,  in  St.  George, 
Bloomsbury,  in  St.  Giles'  District,  comprising  119  houses 
— 1,027  inhabitants. 

The  Medical  Officer  of  Health,  in  his  representation  to 
the  Metropolitan  Board,  gave  a  minute  description  of  the 
place. 

"  The  houses  are  principally  let  to  cab  owners,  who  stable 
their  horses  in  the  lower  floor,  and  reside  with  their  families 
in  the  rooms  over ;  they  are  without  back  yards,  and  the 
rooms  mainly  derive  their  ventilation  from  the  staircase  lead- 
ing out  of  the  stable,  so  that  the  air  is  contaminated  by  the 
noxious  gases  which  issue  from  it.  All  the  closets  are  inside 
the  houses ;  there  are  no  dustbins,  and  the  drinking-water 
is  often  obtained  from  underground  tanks,  which  serve  both 
for  stable,  cleaning,  and  culinary  purposes, 

"  These  houses  are  unfit  for  human  habitation." 

"  The  district  now  represented  as  unfit,  &c.,  constitutes  the 
worst  part  of  the  parish  of  St.  George,  Bloomsbury,  and 
has  been  notorious  for  years  as  largely  contributing  to  the 
sick  and  death  rates  of  the  sub-district." 

In  1862  it  was  reported  that  it  had  "  habitually  a  much 
higher  mortality  than  the  rest  of  the  parish." 

*  Appendix.     Select  Committee  Housing,  1881,  p.  364. 


OF  LONDON  263 

In  the  following  years  "the  mortality  was  seriously 
increasing  there." 

In  1870  smallpox  broke  out  first  in  it,  and  25  cases  occurred 
in  a  short  time.  During  the  same  year  the  deaths  in 
Chapel  Place  from  three  classes  of  disease — the  zymotic, 
pulmonary,  and  tubercular — having  been  17,  the  death-rate 
to  population  was  70  per  1,000  without  reckoning  those  from 
other  causes. 

In  1871  the  general  mortality  was  50  per  cent,  greater  in  it 
than  that  in  the  parish,  whilst  that  of  cholera  was  four  times 
greater. 

In  1874,  nine  cases  of  typhoid  and  typhus  fevers  occurred 
in  it,  "  and  the  locality  was  conspicuous  for  diseases  and 
premature  deaths." 

In  1876  scarlet  fever  was  prevalent. 

Asked  what  class  of  disease  the  people  chiefly  suffer  from, 
the  Medical  Of&cer  of  Health  replied  : — 

"  Mostly  from  debility — zymotic  diseases,  and  infectious 
diseases — such  as  whooping  cough,  typhus,  typhoid  fever, 
cholera,  diarrhoea,  measles,  scarlet-fever,  &c.,  &c.,  small- 
pox, and  gin  liver  disease.  .  .  .  They  are  obliged  to  resort 
to  gin  on  account  of  the  close  and  depressing  condition 
in  which  the  people  live  in  these  Courts  free  from  the 
public  eye. 

"The  women  have  to  stop  at  home;  they  do  not  get  out, 
and  therefore  do  not  get  any  excitement.  Then  they  take 
their  drops.  You  can  often  see  women  at  twelve  o'clock  in 
the  day  drinking  in  public-houses." 

The  Parochial  District  Medical  Officer  said  : — 

"  The  houses  are  so  old  that  the  air  is  really  poisonous ; 
it  is  full  of  miasma  and  dirt  ...  all  the  whitewashing  and 
ventilation  in  the  world  would  do  no  good.  The  condition 
of  the  property  has  got  worse  year  by  year." 

These  are  but  some  of  the  cases  about  which  "  represen- 
tations "  were  made  to  the  Metropolitan  Board  of  "Works — 
sufficient,  however,  as  illustration  of  others.  And  what  an 
awful  and  appalling  picture  they  present.  Had  the  condition 
described  been  only  temporary,  a  mere  passing  phase,  it 
would  have  been  dreadful  enough ;  but  it  had  been  going  on 


264       THE   SANITARY  EVOLUTION 

for  years — it  was  permanently  so — producing  year  after  year 
its  fearful  crop  of  misery  and  crime,  of  disease  and  death, 
and  scattering  broadcast  the  seeds  of  disease  and  death,  the 
"  owners  "  all  the  while  exacting  the  uttermost  farthing 
they  could  in  rents  from  the  miserable  inhabitants,  and 
placidly  and  remorselessly  giving  disease  and  death  in 
return  :  going  on,  too,  during  twenty  years  of  government 
by  "  local  authority  " — Vestry  and  District  Board — and 
nearly  ten  years  after  the  passing  of  the  Sanitary  Act  of 
1866,  with  its  provisions  for  the  abatement  of  over- 
crowding and  the  maintenance  of  a  certain  standard  of 
cleanliness. 

A  few  years'  experience  of  the  working  of  the  Housing 
Act  of  1875  proved  that  it  was  dilatory,  cumbrous,  and 
costly  to  the  ratepayers  of  London. 

The  arbitrator  frequently  awarded  to  owners  of  places 
unfit  for  habitation  compensation  equal  or  almost  equal  in 
amount  to  what  would  have  been  given  if  the  houses  had 
been  good  and  sound.  This  the  Metropolitan  Board  felt  to 
be  an  injustice  to  the  ratepayers  upon  whom  the  charge  fell, 
and  an  encouragement  to  owners  of  houses  occupied  by 
poor  people  to  allow  them  to  fall  into  or  remain  in  a 
dilapidated  condition. 

In  the  year  1879  the  Board  accordingly  made  representa- 
tions to  the  Government,  and  suggested  that  the  owners  of 
unhealthy  houses  should  not  be  compensated  in  proportion 
to  the  profit  they  derived  from  such  houses,  but  according 
to  their  value  as  places  pronounced  unfit  for  habitation. 
The  Board  also  pointed  out — "the  great  loss  entailed  upon 
the  ratepayers  by  the  obligation  which  the  Board  was  under 
to  provide  for  the  accommodation  in  suitable  dwellings  in 
the  same  area  of  at  least  as  many  persons  as  were  displaced. 
This  obligation  rendered  it  necessary  for  the  Board  to  sell, 
at  a  very  low  price,  ground,  which,  with  the  dilapidated 
buildings  upon  it,  had  cost  the  Board  seven  or  eight  times  as 
much,  and  which,  if  the  Board  had  been  free  to  dispose  of  it 
for  commercial  purposes,  and  to  provide  for  the  dispossessed 
people  elsewhere,  would  have  realised  a  much  higher  price."  * 
*  See  Eeport  of  Metropolitan  Board,  1888. 


OF  LONDON  265 

On  the  six  areas  which  had  been  sold  to  the  Peabody 
Trustees  it  was  estimated  that  the  Board — or  in  other 
words,  the  ratepayers  of  London — would  lose  the  large  sum 
of  £562,000. 

The  Board  suggested  that  it  should  have  power  to  dispose 
of  the  cleared  groundfor  commercial  purposes,  and  to  provide 
for  the  re-housing  of  the  displaced  families  in  other  parts  of 
London. 

This  latter  suggestion  was  not  adopted,  but  Parliament 
passed  an  Act  in  1879  which  to  some  extent  lessened,  though 
it  by  no  means  removed  the  defects  of  which  the  Board 
complained,  for  the  Board  declared  that  "  after  careful  con- 
sideration, it  thought  it  well  not  to  prepare  any  more  im- 
provement schemes  until  some  further  experience  has 
been  gained  of  the  working  of  the  Amendment  Act  of 
1879." 

And  in  1879,  also,  an  Act  *  was  passed  which  nominally 
"  amended,"  but  in  reality  destroyed  the  real  good  of 
Torrens'  Act  of  1868,  and  gave  the  owner  power  to  require 
the  local  authority  to  purchase  the  premises  which  had 
been  condemned  as  unfit  for  human  habitation,  and  which 
the  local  authorities  were  to  rebuild  and  hold — thus  prac- 
tically relieving  the  worst  class  of  slum  house  "  owners  "  of 
any  consequences  for  their  malpractices,  relieving  them, 
too,  in  the  most  open  way  at  the  expense  of  the  ratepaying 
public,  as  it  empowered  the  Vestry  "  to  levy  a  rate  of 
twopence  in  the  pound  to  bear  this  expense  as  well  as  that 
of  building  sanitary  dwellings  on  the  site." 

By  one  means  or  another  it  invariably  worked  out  that 
the  slum  owner  obtained  large  sums  for  his  vile  property, 
and  that  the  public  had  to  pay  heavily  for  his  iniquities. 

The  work  which  was  within  the  power  of  the  Vestries 
and  District  Boards  to  do,  in  connection  with  the  sanitary 
condition  of  houses,  was  far  more  wide-reaching  in  extent, 
and  more  immediately  effective  than  any  the  Central 
Authority  could  do  under  its  powers.  Practically  the 
Vestries  had  under  their  supervision  the  sanitary  condition 
of  all  the  houses  of  London.  Moreover  they  could  act  upon 
*  42  and  43  Vic.  cap.  64. 


266       THE   SANITARY  EVOLUTION 

their  own  initiative,  whereas  the  Central  Authority  could 
only  act  when  representations  were  made  to  it. 

But  with  few  exceptions,  they  resolutely  fought  shy  of 
dealing  with  the  crucial  evil — the  condition  of  the  tenement- 
house  population  of  the  metropolis. 

"  There  is  no  doubt,"  wrote  the  Medical  Officer  of  Health 
for  Paddington,  in  1871,  "  from  the  abundant  experience 
and  records  of  the  Sanitary  Department  of  this  and  other 
Vestries,  that  houses  let  out  in  single  rooms,  and  to  several 
families,  have  endangered  the  life  of  people,  have  favoured 
the  spread  of  contagion,  and  are  a  source  of  pauperism  and 
degradation." 

The  various  Health  Acts  gave  them  power  to  deal  with 
most  of  the  prevalent  nuisances. 

But  no  Act  gave  them  such  rapid  and  effective  means  of 
action,  or  so  fixed  upon  the  owner  the  responsibility  and 
cost  of  keeping  his  houses  which  he  let  as  tenement-houses 
in  proper  sanitary  order,  as  did  the  Act  of  1866  by  its 
35th  Section. 

This  Act  had  conferred  power  upon  them  to  make  effective 
bye-laws  or  regulations  as  regarded  such  houses ;  and  in 
1874  the  Sanitary  Law  Amendment  Act  conferred  further 
powers  upon  them.  Kegulations  could  now  be  made  as  to 
the  paving  and  drainage  of  premises,  the  ventilation  of 
rooms,  the  separation  of  the  sexes,  and  to  securing  notices 
being  given  to  the  Medical  Officer  of  Health,  and  precautions 
being  taken  in  case  of  any  dangerously  infectious  disease 
occurring  in  a  registered  house. 

By  such  regulations  the  notification  of  infectious  disease 
occurring  in  tenement-houses  could  have  been  made  com- 
pulsory, and  such  notification  would  have  been  of  the  very 
utmost  value  in  enabling  sanitary  authorities  to  combat  the 
ravages  of  infectious  disease. 

The  regulations  struck  at  the  root  of  the  very  worst  and 
most  prevalent  evils  in  the  homes  of  the  people,  and  had 
they  been  enforced,  would  have  been  a  charter  of  health  to 
millions  of  the  people. 

The  Medical  Officer  of  Health  for  Chelsea,  in  one  of  his 
reports,  well  enforced  their  importance. 


OF  LONDON  267 

"When  it  is  remembered  that  the  whole  of  the  labouring 
population  occupies  but  part  of  the  house  in  which  their 
families  live;  that  in  many  houses  three  or  four  families 
live  together ;  and  not  infrequently  each  family  occupies 
only  a  single  room ;  and  when  it  is  considered  that  whenever 
necessary  all  such  houses  may  be  registered,  it  will  at  once 
be  seen  how  important  is  this  regulation."  * 

These  sections  nevertheless  remained  absolutely  a  dead 
letter  in  nearly  every  one  of  the  metropolitan  districts,  and 
even  the  newly  constituted  Local  Government  Board  did 
not  exercise  its  power  of  declaring  them  to  be  in  force  in 
any  district. 

From  a  return  compiled  in  1874  it  appears  that : — 

(a.)  In  only  seven  parishes  or  districts  f  were  regulations 
made  and  enforced ;  how  imperfectly  even  in  these  is  illus- 
trated by  Lambeth  where,  in  1873,  47  houses  only  had  been 
registered — there  being  29,000  in  the  parish,  one  half  of 
which  were  probably  let  in  lodgings. 

(&)  In  six  districts  regulations  were  made  but  no  attempt 
made  to  enforce  them, 

(c)  And  in  twenty-five  parishes  or  districts  no  regulations 
whatever  had  been  made. 

In  Hackney  and  Chelsea  alone  was  any  widespread  use 
made  of  the  regulation. 

The  explanation  usually  put  forward  of  the  determination 
on  the  part  of  the  Vestries  not  to  enforce  the  sanitary  laws 
as  regarded  houses  was  their  regard  for  the  financial  interests 
of  the  ratepayers.  But  the  real  ground  of  their  aversion 
was  that  action  would  put  house-owners  to  expense. 
"Vested  rights  in  filth  and  dirt  "  were  strongly  represented 
on  the  Vestries  and  District  Boards. 

As  a  witness  said  before  a  Select  Committee  in  1882 : — 

"  So  long  as  vestrymen  own  little  properties,  and  so  long 
as  their  relations  and  friends  do  the  same  thing,  and  they 
are  all  mixed  up  in  a  friendly  association,  you  can  never  get 

*  The  Medical  [Officer  of  Health  for  Chelsea  (writing  of  his  own 
parish). 

f  Chelsea,  Hackney,  Shoreditch,  Lambeth,  St.  George  (Southwark), 
CamberweU,  Plumstead. 


268       THE   SANITARY  EVOLUTION 

the  prevention  of  the  continuance  of  unhealthy  tenements 
carried  through."  * 

And  not  only  was  there  a  passive  but  often  an  active 
opposition  to  work  being  performed  which  it  was  their  duty 
to  do. 

A  general  inspection  would  have  shown  what  houses 
ought  to  have  been  made  subject  to  such  regulations,  but  it 
would  also  have  exposed  too  publicly  the  iniquities  of  house- 
owners,  and  would  have  entailed  a  heavy  expense  on  those 
who  left  the  houses  in  a  perpetual  state  of  dilapidation,  in- 
sanitation,  and  filth ;  and  so  the  staff  of  inspectors  was  kept 
as  low  as  possible. 

A  thorough  enforcement  of  the  regulations  would  have 
necessitated  a  supervision  of  their  houses  by  the  owners  in 
addition  to  expense. 

Many  straws  showed  which  way  the  wind  blew.  Thus 
the  Medical  Officer  of  Health  for  Bethnal  Green  wrote  : — 

"It  is  by  the  constant  inspection  and  reinspection  of 
property  inhabited  by  careless  and  destructive  tenants  that 
most  good  can  be  done.  I  recently  felt  it  my  duty  to 
recommend  a  house-to-house  inspection  of  the  whole 
parish — a  procedure  urgently  required  to  ascertain  the 
condition  of  the  drainage  and  water  supply  arrangements. 
I  regret  to  say  this  recommendation  was  not  acted 
upon." 

And  the  Medical  Officer  of  Health  for  St.  Pancras,  in  re- 
ferring to  house-to-house  inspection,  wrote  : — 

"  This  most  important  branch  of  all  sanitary  work  has 
received  as  much  attention  as  the  number  of  the  sanitary 
staff  will  admit." 

And  so  the  regulations  were  not  made,  or  if  made  were 
not  enforced.  And,  as  the  result,  the  great  masses  of  the 
working  classes,  and  the  poorer  classes  in  the  metropolis, 
were  by  the  deliberate  decision  of  the  great  majority  of 
Vestries  and  District  Boards  deprived  of  the  protection 
which  Parliament  had  devised  and  provided  for  their  sanitary 
and  physical  well-being ;  and  all  the  well-known  evils  of 
overcrowding  were  indefinitely  perpetuated. 

*  Goddard,  1882,  Select  Committee,  p.  576. 


OF  LONDON  269 

Apart  from  the  sense  of  duty  or  responsibility  to  the 
people  which  ought  to  have  appealed  to  them,  there  were 
other  motives  which  might  have  done  so. 

The  Medical  Officer  of  Health  for  Paddington  called 
attention  to  one  of  them  in  1872.     He  wrote  : — 

"  The  costliness  of  preventable  disease  is  enormous. 

"  {a)  Sanitary  supervision,  {h)  Eemoval  to  hospitals, 
(c)  Disinfection,  {d)  Expenses  in  hospital,  (e)  Cost  of 
burial.  (/)  Loss  of  work  in  wages,  {g)  Loss  of  life  to  the 
community,     {h)  Cost  of  widows  and  children." 

And  the  Medical  Officer  of  Health  for  Whitechapel  wrote 
in  1871  :— 

"...  As  the  local  rates  are  continually  increasing  for 
the  relief  of  sickness  and  the  support  of  widows  and  orphans, 
the  building  of  asylums  for  the  insane,  and  the  providing  of 
workhouse  infirmaries  for  the  debilitated  and  prematurely 
old,  it  is  probable  that  local  boards  will  direct  more  attention 
to  the  condition  of  the  houses  of  the  poor  than  they  have 
hitherto  done."  ' 

The  cost  was  brought  home  to  them  in  1871 — "  an  excep- 
tional year  of  mortality  caused  by  the  continued  spread  of 
smallpox." 

"  It  has  been,"  wrote  the  Medical  Officer  of  Health  for 
Lambeth,  "  one  of  the  most  alarming  and  expensive  epi- 
demics that  have  visited  the  country  for  a  century.  The 
cost  in  a  pecuniary  sense  has  been  great,  but  it  is  nothing 
as  compared  to  the  cost  of  human  life. 

"...  I  know  of  no  disease  that  can  be  made  so  preventable 
as  this." 

The  Medical  Officer  of  Health  for  St.  George-the-Martyr 
wrote  : — 

"  No  extravagance  can  be  compared  with  that  of  sanitary 
neglect.  Pounds  are  willingly  paid  for  cure,  where  ha'pence 
would  be  grudged  to  prevent.  Some  diseases  we  can  create, 
most  we  can  propagate,  and  send  on  their  errand  of  misery 
and  destruction." 

In  1878  the  Medical  Officer  of  Health  for  Whitechapel 
again  referred  to  the  subject : — 

**  It  may  be  asserted  without  fear  of  contradiction,  that  all 


270       THE   SANITARY  EVOLUTION 

money  laid  out  for  the  improvement  of  the  public  health 
will  secure  an  ample  dividend.  .  .  . 

"  The  alleviation  of  suffering  and  the  prolongation  of 
human  life  is  the  duty  of  every  noble-minded  man  to  en- 
deavour to  promote. 

"  It  cannot  be  too  frequently  reiterated,  too  extensively 
known,  that  the  rich  not  only  pay  a  heavy  pecuniary  penalty, 
but  often  suffer  a  heavy  affliction  in  themselves  and  families 
by  neglecting  to  improve  the  sanitary  condition  of  the 
houses  and  localities  occupied  by  the  poor.  It  is  well  known 
that  defective  sanitary  arrangements  in  the  poorer  localities 
are  the  chief  causes  of  disease  among  the  poor,  and  when  a 
contagious  disease  is  once  located  it  soon  assumes  an  epi- 
demic form  and  attacks,  indiscriminately,  all  classes  of  the 
people." 

These  views  were  sound  and  true,  but  the  contingencies 
described  always  appeared  remote,  and  arguments  of  more 
immediate  and  remunerative  results  were  constantly  present. 

If  the  conduct  of  the  Vestries  and  District  Boards  was 
reprehensible  for  not  administering  the  existing  laws  for  the 
improvement  of  the  sanitary  condition  of  the  poorer  classes, 
and  if  the  consequences  of  their  deliberate  inaction  were  so 
fatal  to  the  lives  of  countless  thousands  of  the  people  and 
so  disastrous  to  the  well-being  of  the  community,  the  conduct 
of  the  "  owners  "  of  the  houses,  for  the  manner  in  which 
they  allowed  their  tenants  to  live,  was  still  more  so. 

"  I  often  wonder,"  wrote  the  Medical  Officer  of  Health 
for  St.  George-the-Martyr  (1874-6),  "what  many  of  the 
owners  of  property  think  man  was  created  for  except  indeed 
that  he  should  be  housed  in  foul,  wretched  dwellings  in 
order  that  money  may  be  put  in  their  purses,  and  so  they 
may  reap  where  they  have  not  sown.  A  grim  kind  of 
harvest  that  will  prove.  Surely  the  owners  have  neither 
humanity  nor  justice  on  their  side  when  they  allow  their 
houses  to  become  hotbeds  for  the  fostering  and  spreading  of 
disease,  moral  and  physical,  and  in  which  it  is  impossible 
either  to  maintain  cleanliness,  or  support  health,  or  practice 
morality.     There  are  thousands  of  such  houses.  .  .  . 

"  The  only  true  and  lasting  foundation  upon  which  the 


OF  LONDON  271 

glory  and  safety  of  a  nation  can  be  built,  must  be  upon  the  cul- 
tivation of  the  moral  and  physical  powers  belonging  to  man." 

The  "  owners  "  were  of  all  classes. 

An  experienced  witness  *  before  the  Committee  of  1881, 
who  had  acted  as  arbitrator  in  some  of  these  cases,  referring 
to  some  of  the  worst  slum  areas  in  London,  said : — 

*'  It  came  before  me  that  a  great  many  people  in  life 
better  than  that  supposed,  do  draw  considerable  incomes 
from  insanitary  house  property." 

"  Some  of  these  worst  places  are  held  by  rich  gentlemen 
and  ladies." 

"The  class  of  landlords  we  have  here  are  very  shrewd 
money-making  men,  and  they  would  not  show  much  con- 
sideration to  their  tenants." 

The  Medical  Ofdcer  of  Health  for  St.  George-the-Martyr, 
Southwark,  reported  (1876-7)  :— 

"We  have  heard  denounced,  times  out  of  number,  and  in 
the  strongest  terms,  the  conduct  of  the  holders  of  small 
property  as  being  most  selfish,  and  they  themselves  the 
most  persistent  and  obstinate  opponents  of  sanitary 
measures  and  improvements;  and  moreover  that  this 
class  formed  a  considerable  portion  of  our  Vestries.  How- 
ever this  may  be,  they  cannot  claim  a  monopoly  to  this 
unenviable  distinction.  .  .  . 

"  Much  of  the  small  class  property  is  placed  in  the  hands 
of  agents  who  neither  hold  nor  cultivate  any  interest  in  the 
welfare  and  comfort  of  the  tenants. 

"  To  get  the  most  rent  with  the  least  possible  trouble  and 
outlay  seems  to  comprise  their  whole  duty  (of  course  there 
are  exceptions). 

"  How  much  better  in  all  respects  would  it  be  that  the 
owner  himself  should  give  some  personal  supervision  to  his 
property  and  to  the  state  of  those  who  dwell  in  it." 

And  there  was  another  class  of  "owners" — the  middle- 
men— "  the  very  curse  that  is  incident  in  all  society." 

"  There  are  a  great  many  middlemen  dealing  with  these 
properties.     A  great  deal  of  it  is  to  let  out  in  lodgings.     A 
man  goes  and  buys  this  wretched  property  at  public  auction 
*  Mr.  Hunter  Rodwell,  Q.C.,  M.P. 


272       THE   SANITARY  EVOLUTION 

in  different  parts  of  London  to  pay  him  10  or  12  %,  and  he 

underlets  it  at  so  much  a  room  to  weekly  tenants." 

"It  is  these  small  men  who  go  into  it  to  make  a  profit, 
and  screw  the  poor,  wretched  holders  down  to  the  last 
farthing — in  fact  they  get  as  much  as  they  can  out  of  the 
property,  and  do  as  little  as  they  can." 

Some  of  the  Medical  Officers  of  Health  referred  to  the 
difficulties  of  getting  the  "owners  "to  do  anything  to  keep 
their  property  in  order. 

Thus  the  Medical  Officer  of  Health  for  St.  James'  wrote 
(1877-8)  :— 

"  On  eastern  border  of  parish  a  large  number  of  houses 
are  now  increasingly  being  underleased  in  order  to  be  let 
out  as  tenement-houses.  .  .  .  Dealers  in  these  houses  make 
enormous  aggregate  rentals  out  of  the  improvident  working 
people  whom  they  thus  herd  together ;  and  persistent  efforts 
on  the  part  of  the  sanitary  officers  are  needed  to  goad  some 
of  these  *  landlords  '  into  keeping  their  '  property  '  in  a  decent 
condition." 

With  a  very  large  number  of  house-owners  and  other 
sanitary  misdoers,  nothing  but  the  vigorous  administration 
of  the  law  would  induce  them  to  abate  nuisances  or  do 
anything  for  their  tenants. 

"  I  am  quite  sure,"  wrote  the  Medical  Officer  of  Health 
for  Hackney  in  1880,  "  that  a  prompt  and  strict  enforce- 
ment of  the  various  sanitary  Acts  is  beneficial  not  only  to 
tenants,  but  landlords,  because  the  latter  will  not  allow 
tenants  to  occupy  their  houses  who  frequently  bring  them 
under  the  notice  of  the  sanitary  officers." 

With  many,  however,  the  fact  that  the  law  had  been  put 
in  force  against  them,  and  would,  if  necessary,  again  be  put 
in  force  was  sufficient. 

"  The  number  of  statutory  notices  this  year  was  not 
much  more  than  half.  Owners  have  carried  out  the 
necessary  works  for  fear  of  being  summoned." 

And  numerous  other  reports  were  to  the  same  effect. 
But  a  vigorous  administration  of  the  sanitary  laws  against 
owners  was  the  very  last  thing  which  it  was  of  use  looking 
to  the  Vestries  or  District  Boards  for. 


OF   LONDON  273 

Some  of  the  Vestries  and  District  Boards  put  pressure 
upon  their  Medical  Officers  of  Health  to  prevent  energy 
upon  their  part. 

Thus  the  Medical  Officer  of  Health  for  St.  Pancras  in 
1875  tendered  his  resignation,  giving  the  following  reasons : — 

"  That  while  I  am  held  responsible  for  the  sanitary  condi- 
tion of  the  parish,  I  am  denied  that  assistance  in  outdoor 
inspection  of  houses  either  visited  with  contagious  diseases 
or  habitually  in  an  unsatisfactory  condition,  which  I  believe 
to  be  necessary.  I  feel  that  the  severe  condemnation  which 
a  house-to-house  visitation  of  the  poorer  parts  of  the  parish 
has  received  from  a  majority  of  the  sanitary  committee 
must  of  necessity  hopelessly  weaken  my  authority  with  the 
sanitary  inspectors,  and  render  nugatory  my  efforts  to  carry 
out  the  Sanitary  Acts.  ..." 

Parliament  was  passing  some  useful  legislation  for  the 
improvement  of  the  public  health,  and  taking  some  action 
against  some  of  the  more  heinous  existing  abuses. 

Several  of  the'  evils  already  described  connected  with  the 
building  of  houses  were  dealt  with  in  an  Act  *  passed  in  1878. 
It  was  at  last  declared  to  be — "expedient  to  make  provisions 
with  respect  to  the  making,  filling  up,  and  preparation 
of  the  foundation  of  sites  of  houses  and  buildings  to  be 
erected  within  the  metropolis,  and  with  respect  to  the 
quality  of  the  substances  to  be  used  in  the  formation  or 
construction  of  the  sites,  foundations  and  walls  of  such 
houses  with  a  view  to  the  stability  of  the  same,  the  preven- 
tion of  fires,  and  for  purposes  of  health." 

The  Metropolitan  Board  of  Works  was  empowered  to 
make  bye-laws  respecting  the  foundations  and  sites  of 
houses  to  be  constructed,  and  with  respect  to  the  material 
used  in  the  construction  of  such  houses  and  of  the  walls  and 
buildings ;  and  the  Board  issued  a  set  of  comprehensive 
regulations  upon  the  subject. 

"Considerable  opposition  was  manifested  by  builders 
before  the  Secretary  of  State." 

But,  nevertheless,  the  regulations  were  sanctioned  and 
approved. 

*  41  and  42  Vic.  cap.  32. 

19 


274      THE   SALUTARY  EVOLUTION 

And  in  the  same  year  (1878)  Parliament  had  passed  an 
Act  which  materially  improved  the  sanitary  conditions 
under  which  men,  women,  and  children  worked  in  factories 
and  workshops.* 

Guided  by  experience,  Parliament  had  gradually  been 
extending  the  operation  of  the  previous  Acts  from  one  trade 
to  another,  and  as  Lord  Shaftesbury  said  : — 

**  The  general  result  had  been  to  introduce  and  establish 
a  system  of  order,  content,  and  satisfaction.  The  children 
in  the  factories  presented  quite  a  different  appearance  from 
that  which  was  their  characteristic  in  former  times;  they 
were  now  hale  and  stout." 

And  the  Factory  and  Workshops  Eoyal  Commission  f  in 
1876  wrote  :— 

"The  improvement  in  the  sanitary  arrangements  and 
ventilation  of  factories  had  been  most  marked  in  recent 
years ;  and  the  cases  in  which  young  persons  and  women 
suffer  in  labour  unfitted  for  their  years,  or  in  which  young 
persons  and  women  suffer  physically  from  overwork,  are 
now,  we  believe,  as  uncommon  as  formerly  they  were 
common. 

"  Much  of  this  great  improvement  is  undoubtedly  due  to 
factory  legislation." 

The  Act  directed  that : — 

"A  factory  or  workshop  should  be  kept  in  a  cleanly  state 
and  free  from  effluvia  arising  from  any  drain,  or  other 
nuisance." 

And  that  they  should  "  not  be  so  overcrowded  while  work 
is  carried  on  therein  as  to  be  injurious  to  the  health  of  the 
persons  employed  therein,  and  should  be  ventilated  in  such 
a  manner  as  to  render  harmless,  as  far  as  practicable,  all  the 
gases,  dust,  &c.,  generated  in  the  course  of  the  manu- 
facturing process  and  that  may  be  injurious  to  health." 

By  subsequent  order  of  the  Secretary  of  State,  250  cubic 
feet  air  space  were  to  be  given  to  each  adult  during  the  day, 
400  cubic  feet  after  eight  o'clock  at  night. 

It  was  to  be  *'  the  duty  of  the  sanitary  authority  to  make 
such  inquiry  and  to  take  such  action  thereon  as  to  that 
*  41  Vic.  cap.  16.  t  P-P-*  vol.  xxix. 


OF  LONDON  275 

authority  may  seem  proper  for  the  purpose  of  enforcing  the 
law." 

A  very  material  factor  in  the  health  of  the  people  was 
dealt  with  in  this  Act — namely,  the  condition  of  the  bake- 
houses where  the  daily  bread  of  the  community  was 
prepared. 

Legislation  as  to  bakehouses  had  been  left  unchanged 
since  the  Act  of  1863,  and  in  harmony  with  the  usual 
disregard  of  their  duties  by  the  local  sanitary  authorities, 
little  use  was  made  of  that  Act. 

The  Eoyal  Commission  of  1875  reported  that  it  was  "only 
here  and  there  that  any  active  steps  had  been  taken  by  the 
local  authorities  to  carry  out  the  provisions  of  the  Bake- 
house Act." 

By  the  Act  passed  in  1878  the  Bakehouse  Eegulation  Act 
of  1863  was  repealed,  and  the  duty  of  regulating  the  sanitary 
condition  of  bakehouses  was  transferred  from  the  local 
authority  to  the  Inspectors  of  Factories. 

In  1878,  also;  the  Contagious  Diseases  Animals  Act  was 
passed.  Primarily  it  was  directed  to  the  protection  from 
cattle  plague  of  the  cattle  of  the  country,  and  the  prevention 
of  the  spread  of  disease,  which  had  been  entailing  heavy 
losses  upon  their  owners,  and  very  stringent  precautions 
were  imposed. 

But  it  contained  also  some  very  valuable  provisions  as  to 
the  condition  of  cowhouses  and  dairies,  and  early  in  1879  the 
Privy  Council  issued  an  Order  providing  for  the  registration 
of  all  persons  carrying  on  the  trade  of  cowkeepers  and  pur- 
veyors of  milk,  for  regulating  the  lighting,  ventilation, 
cleansing,  drainage,  and  water  supply  of  dairies  and  cowsheds, 
for  securing  the  cleanliness  of  milk  stores,  milk  shops,  and 
milk  vessels,  and  for  protecting  milk  against  infection  and 
contamination. 

Inspectors  were  appointed  by  the  Board. 

"  At  the  time  of  the  passing  of  the  Order  the  London 
cowsheds  were,  with  few  exceptions,  unsuitable  in  con- 
struction and  in  sanitary  arrangements.  By  opposing  the 
renewal  of  licenses  the  Metropolitan  Board  succeeded  in 
abolishing  from  two  to  three  hundred  of  the  worst  of  them, 


276       THE   SANITARY  EVOLUTION 

and  obtained  improvements,  amounting  to  entire  recon- 
struction, in  the  remainder.  In  the  larger  dairies  and  milk 
stores  much^improvement  was  also  effected." 

It  was  this  Act  of  1878  which  drew  from  the  Medical 
Officer  of  Health  for  Whitechapel  the  following  remarkable 
passages  in  his  report ;  passages  which  are  enlightening  as 
to  the  prevalent  views  of  the  time. 

*'  We  have  a  striking  instance  of  the  great  interest  that  is 
shown  in  the  protection  of  property  and  the  comparatively 
little  value  that  is  attached  to  the  health  of  the  people  in 
the  recent  Act — *  The  Contagious  Diseases  Animals  Act 
1878.' 

"  As  regards  the  laws  which  are  in  force  for  the  protection 
of  the  health  of  cattle,  which  may  be  looked  upon  as 
property,  I  have  nothing  to  complain ;  but  as  a  health 
officer  I  may  express  my  surprise  that  similar  laws  to  those 
which  are  now  in  force  respecting  disease  in  cattle  are  not 
enacted  to  prevent  the  spreading  of  infectious  and  con- 
tagious diseases  among  the  people.  At  present  there  is  no 
general  law  in  force  to  compel  persons,  who  may  become 
acquainted  with  the  existence  of  an  infectious  disease  in  a 
dwelling-house,  to  give  notice  of  the  same  to  the  Sanitary 
Of&cer.  .  .  . 

"  Surely  it  is  more  important  to  protect  the  lives  of  the 
people  than  to  protect  from  loss  the  dealers  in  cattle ;  but 
until  the  care  of  public  health  is  considered  to  be  of  more 
importance  than  the  care  of  property,  little  improvement 
in  the  laws  relating  to  health  can  be  expected." 

"  The  preference  which  is  given  by  our  law  makers  to  the 
protection  of  the  supposed  vested  rights  of  property  above 
that  of  public  health  is  likewise  shown  by  the  rejection  of 
the  several  Building  Bills  for  the  amendment  of  the  Build- 
ing Act. 

"  The  opinion  of  the  House  appeared  to  prevail  that  *  a  man 
has  a  right  to  do  what  he  likes  with  his  own,  as  regards  the 
building  of  as  many  houses  as  can  possibly  be  packed  to- 
gether on  his  own  land,  without  taking  into  consideration 
the  health  of  the  people  who  are  to  inhabit  them,  or  the 
health  of  those  in  the  immediate  neighbourhood.'     So  long 


OF  LONDON  277 

as  the  Building  Act  as  regards  open  spaces  at  the  rear  of 
houses  remains  unaltered,  so  long  will  unhealthy  houses 
continue  to  be  built." 

Some  of  the  more  capable  of  the  Medical  Officers  of  Health 
in  their  reports  did  not  content  themselves  with  mere  tables 
of  the  births  and  diseases  and  deaths  in  their  parishes,  and 
a  narrative  of  the  principal  incidents  in  their  work  during 
the  year,  but  pointed  out  the  defects  in  the  laws,  and  made 
suggestions  as  to  the  best  ways  of  coping  with  some  of  the 
great  sanitary  evils  daily  confronting  them. 

Based  upon  actual  experience,  their  views  and  suggestions 
were  entitled  to  great  weight,  and  were  often  of  very  great 
value. 

One  point,  and  that  the  most  important  of  all,  finds  expres- 
sion in  the  reports  of  more  than  one  of  them,  namely,  that 
the  administration  of  many  of  the  health  laws  should  be 
compulsory  instead  of  permissive,  and  that  mereljPideclaring 
a  law  compulsory  without  providing  the  means  for  making 
it  compulsory  was  of  little  use. 

What  was  wanted  in  London  was  a  real  central  authority 
which  should  have  power  to  make  the  local  authorities  carry 
out  the  orders  of  Parliament.  This  did  not  exist,  for  the 
Metropolitan  Board  of  Works  had  no  such  powers,  and  the 
Vestries  and  Districts  Boards  were  independent  local 
governing  authorities  acknowledging  no  master  and  free  to 
obey  or  disobey  Acts  of  Parliament  just  as  they  pleased. 

"It  has  been  one  of  the  great  faults  of  our  sanitary 
arrangements  and  legislation  for  London,"  wrote  the  Medical 
Officer  of  Health  for  St.  James'  in  1872,  "  that  the  metropolis 
has  not  been  regarded  as  a  whole,  and  that  through  the 
ignorance,  or  carelessness,  of  one  District  or  Local  Board 
the  whole  of  the  others  may  be  put  in  peril." 

"  It  is  impossible,  with  our  present  municipal  machinery, 
in  London,  at  any  rate,  to  exercise  all  that  power  which  is 
necessary  for  the  prevention  of  the  spread  of  infectious 
diseases." 

And  the  Medical  Officer  of  Health  for  Whitechapel  in 
1873  wrote :— 


278       THE   SANITARY  EVOLUTION 

"  If  any  alteration  is  made  in  the  constitution  of  the 
MetropoHtan  Board  of  Works  it  would  be  desirable  to 
add  to  its  functions  that  of  a  sanitary  supervision  over  the 
whole  metropolis." 

And  in  1881  the  Medical  Officer  of  Health  for  Kensington 
wrote  : — 

"London  is  grievously  in  need  of  a  Central  Sanitary 
Department  to  establish  something  like  unity  in  the  sanitary 
arrangements  of  its  39  divisions.  .  .  .  Every  other  large 
centre  of  population  has  but  one  sanitary  authority." 

Though  much  more  time,  thought,  and  labour,  were 
being  devoted  than  ever  before  to  matters  relating  to  the 
public  health,  and  with  very  beneficial  results,  one 
matter  appeared  to  be  quite  unaffected  thereby,  for  none 
of  the  great  measures  of  sanitary  improvement  which 
had  been  carried  out  since  the  central  and  local  authorities 
had  come  into  being  seem  to  have  had  any  effect 
during  the  1871-80  decade  upon  infantile  mortality. 

If  anything  the  figures  appear  higher.  In  St.  George- 
in-the-East  in  1871-2  the  deaths  of  children  under  five 
years  were  51  per  cent,  of  all  the  deaths. 

In  Mile-End-Old-Town  in  1872-3,  out  of  a  total  of 
2,200  deaths,  1,087,  or  practically  50  per  cent.,  were 
deaths. of  children  under  five,  a  mortality  which  evoked 
the  comment  from  the  Medical  Officer  of  Health : — 

"Apart  from  congenital  causes,  a  large  majority  of  these 
young  lives  would,  under  conditions  more  favourable  to 
existence,  be  preserved.  ...  It  is  certain  that  the  present 
generation  of  London  children  is  physically  degenerate." 

And  a  year  later  he  wrote  : — 

"  I  consider  about  two-thirds  of  the  infantile  mortality 
attributable  to  neglect,  improper  feeding,  impure  air 
from  overcrowding,  and  general  bad  management  through 
ignorance  and  carelessness  of  parents  and  nurses." 

In  Kensington,  away  in  the  west,  the  average  annual 
infantile  mortality  over  a  period  of  ten  years — 1863-73 — 
was  42  per  cent,  of  the  total  deaths. 

The  Medical  Officer  of  Health  for  Whitechapel 
wrote  (1873) :— 


OF  LONDON  279 

"  There  must  be  something  very  wrong  in  the  condition 
of  the  people  when  we  find  that  out  of  all  children  born 
about  one-fifth  die  before  they  are  one  year  old,  and 
one-third  before  they  are  five." 

In  the  north  part  of  his  district  in  the  quarter  ended 
December  28,  1872,  the  rate  of  mortality  of  children 
under  five  was  61'1  per  cent.,  whilst  in  the  quarter 
ended  September,  1873,  in  Goodman's  Fields  the  rate 
was  72'4  per  cent. 

In  St.  George-the-Martyr,  South wark,  in  1873-4,  of 
1,256  deaths  694  (=55*3  per  cent.)  were  under  five. 

In  the  same  year  the  Medical  Officer  of  Health  for 
Paddington  wrote : — 

"  In  taking  fifteen  streets  typical  of  the  ordinary  con- 
dition of  the  dwellings  in  which  the  working-class  reside, 
I  find  the  annual  proportion  of  deaths  under  five  ranges 
from  41  to  75  per  cent,  of  the  total  deaths.  .  .  . 

"  The  deaths  from  all  causes  in  eighteen  such  streets  varies 
from  21-7  to  50'per  1,000." 

The  Medical  Officer  of  Health  for  Limehouse  wrote  in 
1874  :— 

"  As  usual  we  find  that  of  1,000  deaths  more  than  500  are 
those  of  children  under  five." 

Two  years  later  it  was  53  per  cent. 

Nor  was  it  only  in  the  central  parts  of  London  that 
the  infantile  mortality  was  so  frightful.  In  Wandsworth, 
the  mean  annual  rate  during  the  years  1865-74  was 
49*6  per  cent. 

The  infantile  death-rate  did  not  diminish  as  the  decade 
proceeded.  In  Islington  in  1875-6  the  infant  mortality 
was  "much  about  the  same"  as  it  had  been  twelve  years 
previously. 

In  Kensington  it  had  increased  to  46"3  in  1878 ;  in 
St.  George-the-Martyr  to  57"7  per  cent. ;  in  St.  Pancras  in 
1877-8,  of  5,068  deaths,  2,212  (or  45-6  per  cent.)  were  of 
children  under  five. 

The  Medical  Officer  of  Health  for  Poplar  wrote 
(1877-8)  :— 

"  The  deaths  of  children  under  five  years  have  been  more 


280       THE  SANITARY  EVOLUTION 

than  half  the  total  of  deaths — truly  a    'massacre  of  the 
Innocents.'" 

The    Medical    Officer    of   Health    for    Islington    wrote 

(1880)  :— 

"  The  number  of  deaths  of  children  under  one  year 
is  still  painfully  large.  .  .  .  Children  seem  to  be  born  for 
little  else  than  to  be  buried." 

Passing  from  record  to  comment,  there  are  some  striking 
passages  in  the  reports  of  the  Medical  Officers  of  Health. 

Thus  the  Medical  Officer  of  Health  for  Paddington 
wrote  : — 

" .  .  .  Of  infantile  mortality  one  is  tempted  to  ask 
whether  the  provision  of  so  much  life,  such  a  prodigality  of 
being,  to  be  followed  so  soon  by  an  almost  Pharaoh  sacri- 
fice of  it,  is  necessary  to  the  multiplication  of  the  race." 

And  the  Medical  Officer  of  Health  for  St.  Marylebone 
(1877)  :— 

"It  is  sad,  and  in  a  sanitary  point  of  view,  humili- 
ating to  contemplate,  that  for  every  three  children  born 
in  Marylebone,  one  dies  before  reaching  the  age  of  five 
years ;  'tis  true  that  in  this  respect  Marylebone  stands 
in  no  worse  position  than  other  large  parishes  in  the 
metropolis,  nor  so  bad  as  in  the  majority  of  them,  but 
the  knowledge  of  this  fact  will,  I  apprehend,  afford  but 
slender  consolation  to  those  who  know  from  experience 
and  daily  observation  that  hereditary  diseases,  habitual 
neglect,  unwholesome  dwellings,  together  with  other 
preventable  causes,  are  largely  concerned  in  the  sacrifice 
of  infant  life." 

And    the    Medical    Officer    of    Health  for    Eotherhithe 

(1881)  :— 

"  Whilst  the  houses'  drain-pipes,  from  defective  construc- 
tion and  workmanship,  and  want  of  being  cut  off  from  the 
main  sewer,  act  as  much  as  sewer  ventilators  as  channels 
for  removing  filth  .  .  .  whilst  overcrowded  houses  and  foul 
smells  in  living  and  sleeping  rooms  are  taken  as  a  matter  of 
course ;  whilst  infectious  disease  is  sedulously  propagated 
first  by  concealment,  and  then  by  criminal  exposure  and 
neglect,    ...    so    long    the    yearly    recurring    Herodean 


OF   LONDON  281 

massacre  of  helpless  children,  whose  almost  sole  use  in 
life  appears  to  be  the  providing  of  fees  for  doctors  and 
undertakers,  will  continue,  in  spite  of  all  efforts  of  sanitary 
authorities  and  sanitarians." 

The  evil  done,  however,  by  bad  sanitary  conditions  was 
not  limited  to  the  children  who  died.  Probably  ten  or 
twenty  times  the  number  of  those  who  died  went  through 
the  illness  and  survived — but  of  those  many  were  injured  in 
constitution  for  life. 

|f  In  other  respects,  however,  sanitary  progress  was  being 
made,  and  slowly  but  steadily  the  conditions  of  the  health 
of  the  public  were  improving.  Undoubtedly  the  main 
causes  of  that  progress  were  the  great  system  of  main 
drainage  and  sewerage  which  had  relieved  London  of  the 
incubus  of  enormous  accumulations  of  the  deadliest  filth 
in  its  houses,  and  of  an  open  main  sewer  through  its 
midst  ;  and  the  greater  quantity,  and  improved  quality, 
of  the  water  supplied  for  household  consumption  which 
relieved  her  inhabitants  from  the  necessity  of  drinking 
liquid  sewage. 

And  the  construction  of  sewers  in  nearly  all  the  streets, 
and  the  substitution  of  an  effective  system  of  house 
drainage  instead  of  the  abomination  of  cesspools,  was  also 
a  great  stride  to  improvement. 

Since  1856  plans  for  the  construction  of  a  total  length  of 
nearly  1,000  miles  of  local  sewers  had  been  submitted  to 
the  Metropolitan  Board  for  their  approval,  many  of  them 
being  in  substitution  of  old  and  shallow  ones  for  which  the 
Board's  new  main  and  intercepting  lines  afforded  the  means 
of  improving  the  gradient  and  outlet. 

In  their  report  for  1881  the  Metropolitan  Board  of  Works 
gave  "a  brief  summary"  of  what  it,  as  the  Central 
Authority,  had  accomplished  since  1856. 

"  There  was  the  great  main  drainage  w;ork  which  had 
cost  about  five  and  three-quarter  millions,  an  undertaking 
which  '  although  fruitful  of  good  results,  and  of  greater 
magnitude  than  anything  of  a  similar  kind  that  had 
previously  been  accomplished,  has  left,  as  might  be  expected, 
few  visible  marks  of  its  existence.'  " 


282       THE   SANITARY   EVOLUTION 

It  is  rather  the  Thames  embankments  and  broad  new 
streets  which  remind  the  inhabitants  of  London  of  the  great 
changes  and  improvements  that  the  Board's  operations 
effected. 

"  On  the  north  side  of  the  Thames,  from  Blackfriars  to 
Westminster,  and  from  Grosvenor  Road  to  Battersea  Bridge, 
and  on  the  south  side,  from  Westminster  to  Vauxhall, 
embankments  have  been  made  which,  whilst  reclaiming 
from  the  river  a  considerable  extent  of  ground,  have  substi- 
tuted for  the  unsightly  and  offensive  mud  banks  that  formerly 
prevailed,  handsome  river  walls,  with  broad  and  commo- 
dious thoroughfares,  relieved  and  ornamented  by  public 
gardens.  New  streets  have  been  made,  some  of  the  principal 
of  which  are  Queen  Victoria  Street,  Southwark  Street, 
Northumberland  Avenue,  Commercial  Road,  and  the  new 
thoroughfare  from  Oxford  Street  to  Bethnal  Green ;  many 
other  leading  thoroughfares,  which  had  become  inadequate 
for  the  increased  traffic  of  the  present  day,  have  been 
widened  and  improved,  greatly  to  the  convenience  and 
comfort  of  the  public ;  and  liberal  grants  of  money  have 
been  made  by  the  Board  to  the  authorities  in  aid  of  the  cost 
of  smaller  street  improvements  which  have  not  been  of 
sufficient  extent  or  importance  to  be  carried  out  by  the 
Board. 

"  Two  new  parks  have  been  provided,  in  districts  previously 
unsupplied  with  such  places  of  needed  recreation.  Public 
gardens  have  been  laid  out  and  are  maintained  in  the 
neighbourhood  of  dense  populations ;  and  suburban  commons, 
to  the  extent  of  about  1,500  acres,  have  by  the  action  of  the 
Board  been  secured  in  perpetuity  for  the  undisturbed 
enjoyment  of  the  public. 

"  Many  areas  formerly  covered  with  dwellings  unfit  for 
human  habitation  have  been  cleared,  under  the  operation  of 
the  Artizans'  and  Labourers'  Dwellings  Improvement  Act, 
and  the  ground  let  to  societies  which  have  undertaken  to 
build,  and  in  some  cases  have  built,  improved  dwellings,  in 
which  the  humblest  class  of  the  working  population  can 
live  with  health,  decency,  and  comfort." 

These  and  many  consequential  improvements,   and  the 


OF   LONDON  283 

better  paving  of  the  streets,  and  the  better  cleansing  of 
streets,  places,  and  yards,  the  more  rapid  removal  of  filth 
from  London,  had  made  the  general  conditions  of  life  much 
less  unwholesome. 

The  work,  too,  being  done  by  the  Metropolitan  Asylums 
Board  was  greatly  diminishing  the  dangers  of  infection  in 
the  metropolis,  as  well  as  restoring  to  life  and  health 
thousands  who  would  otherwise  have  fallen  victims  to 
disease. 

And  by  "  The  Poor  Law  Act,  1879,"  the  Vestries  and 
District  Boards  were  authorised  to  enter  into  contracts  with 
the  Board,  for  the  reception  and  treatment  of  infectious  sick 
who  were  not  paupers,  thus  in  a  measure  depauperising  the 
Metropolitan  Asylums  Hospitals. 

And  a  very  large  amount  of  most  valuable  work  was  done 
by  the  Port  Sanitary  Authority ;  in  the  year  1879-80  over 
15,000  vessels  of  all  classes  having  been  visited  and  inspected, 
the  infectious  sick  removed,  and  disinfection  carried  out. 

Writing  of  the  year  1877  the  Kegistrar  General  said : — 

*'  London  maintains  its  position  as  the  healthiest  city  in 
the  world.  During  the  past  year  its  prosperity  was  indicated 
by  a  birth-rate  above  the  average  of  the  preceding  10  years, 
while  a  remarkably  low  death-rate  bears  testimony  to  the 
success  which  has  attended  the  efforts  that  have  been  made 
during  the  last  half  of  a  century  to  promote  the  public  health 
and  safety." 

Among  the  public  authorities  from  which  much  might  have 
been  hoped  in  the  way  of  improving  the  public  health  of 
the  inhabitants  of  London  was  the  School  Board.  The 
Board  stood  in  an  exceptionally  favourable  position  for 
moulding  the  physical  constitution  of  hundreds  of  thousands 
of  children  and  of  successive  generations,  but  education  ap- 
peared to  have  almost  excluded  the  consideration  of  health. 

In  1871  the  Board  resolved  "  that  it  is  highly  desirable 
that  means  shall  be  provided  for  physical  training,  exercise 
and  drill  in  public  elementary  schools  established  under  the 
Board.  "  But  beyond  this,  little  if  anything  was  done,  and 
even  it  was  not  made  applicable  to  the  girls.  And  no 
Medical  Officer  was  appointed,  and  no  systematic  means 


284       THE   SANITARY  EVOLUTION 

organised  for  the  prevention  of  the  diffusion  of  diseases  by 
the  schools.  Indirectly,  however,  good  results  were  flowing 
from  the  schools.  The  attendance  of  the  children  at  the 
schools  took  them  out  of  their  overcrowded  tenement-homes 
for  several  hours  in  the  day  ;  their  playgrounds  afforded 
better  means  of  exercise ;  the  cleanliness  expected  of  them 
raised  their  ideas  as  to  cleanliness ;  the  supervision  over 
them  was  of  great  use  in  improving  their  conduct  and 
character,  all  helped  to  improve  their  physical  condition. 
But  how  infinitely  greater  the  improvement  might  have 
been,  not  merely  at  the  time  but  to  the  rising  generation,  if 
the  School  Board  had  given  greater  attention  to  this  branch 
of  the  children's  welfare.  About  230,000  children  were  in 
attendance  in  the  Board's  Schools  in  1880. 

The  really  encouraging  feature  of  the  general  position 
was  that  a  larger  section  of  the  public  was  taking  an  interest 
in  matters  relating  to  the  public  health. 

In  Battersea,  wrote  the  Medical  Officer  of  Health 
(1881)  :— 

"  Much  assistance  is  now  derived  from  the  general  public, 
who  are  more  alive  to  the  necessity  of  sanitary  measures 
than  at  any  previous  period." 

The  Medical  Officer  of  Health  for  St.  George-the-Martyr, 
Southwark,  reported : — 

"  The  health  of  the  people  occupies  the  thought  and 
consideration  of  an  ever-increasing  number,"  and  he  quoted 
the  declaration  of  the  head  of  the  Government  that  "  the 
sanitary  question  lies  at  the  bottom  of  all  national  well- 
being." 

The  Medical  Officer  of  Health  for  North  Poplar  stated 
that — 

"  Gradually  the  labouring  portion  of  the  population,  which 
so  largely  outnumbers  the  remainder  with  us,  is  becoming 
educated  to  the  fact  that  they  must  neither  breathe  air, 
drink  water,  nor  take  food,  polluted  by  filth. " 

But,  as  a  whole,  public  opinion  was  more  or  less  inert. 

"  The  apathy  of  the  public  in  matters  of  health  is  truly 
lamentable." 

Nor  was  all  the  apparent  progress  as  genuine  as  appeared 


OF   LONDON  285 

on  the  surface.     The  Medical  Officer  of  Health  for  St.  Mary, 
Newington,  in  his  report  of  1874  disclosed  this  material  fact. 

Writing  of  some  Eeturns  which  he  had  prepared  of 
sickness  in  seventeen  years,  he  said : — 

"In  the  period  we  have  seen  the  end  of  many  fever 
haunts.  We  have  seen  hundreds  and  hundreds  of  the  old 
tenements  removed  and  new  abodes  raised  in  their  stead ; 
but  with  it,  alas !  we  have  seen  all  the  defects  of  new 
buildings,  all  the  defects  of  badly  laid  drains,  all  the  evils  of 
work  ill  done,  its  dangers  too  often  not  capable  of  recognition 
until  sickness  and  death  forced  the  discovery.  We  have 
seen  too  often  in  the  new  houses  defects  of  ventilation,  of 
construction,  of  drainage,  and  of  overcrowding :  we  have 
seen  many  an  evil  allowed  by  law,  and  over  which  we 
cannot  extend  our  sanitary  rules.  We  have  also  to  contend 
with  the  indifference,  the  carelessness,  the  blindness  of  the 
people  themselves — intemperance  and  crime  stand  in  our 
way.  .  .  ." 

But  in  1881  he  wrote  :  "  Sanitary  work  has  borne  fruit." 

The  progress  of  sanitation  is  almost  necessarily  slow. 

"There  is  not,"  wrote  one  of  the  Medical  Officers  of 
Health,  "  a  more  difficult  task  than  that  of  carrying  out 
sanitary  reform,  for  although  every  one  agrees  that  sanitary 
laws  should  be  put  in  force,  they  are  greatly  objected  to 
when  they  interfere  with  one's  self." 

And  another  wrote  : — 

"  Nuisances  crop  up,  are  removed,  and  re-appear.  It  is  a 
continuous  warfare  due  to  many  causes,  such  as  careless- 
ness and  wilfulness  on  the  one  hand,  and  accidental  circum- 
stances on  the  other." 

And  another : — 

'*  The  sanitary  labours  of  your  officers  increase  year  by 
year  as  the  population  becomes  denser,  and  the  need  for 
sanitary  precautions  grows  more  urgent." 

And  underneath  all  was  the  view  expressed  by  the  Medical 
Officer  of  Health  for  IsHngton  (1881)  :— 

"  I  fear  the  public  have  not  even  yet  learned  to  regard 
health  as  a  matter  of  infinitely  greater  moment  than  rates 
and  taxes." 


286       THE   SANITARY  EVOLUTION 

How  far-reaching  were  the  effects  of  disease  was  admirably 
set  forth  by  Dr.  Simon : — 

"  I  do  not  pretend  to  give  any  exact  statement  of  the 
total  influence  which  preventable  diseases  exert  against  the 
efficiency  and  happiness  of  our  population,  for  it  is  only  so 
far  as  such  diseases  kill,  and  even  thus  far  but  very  im- 
perfectly, that  the  effect  can  be  reported  in  numbers.  Of 
the  incalculable  amount  of  physical  suffering  and  disable- 
ment which  they  occasion,  and  of  the  sorrows,  and  anxieties, 
the  permanent  darkening  of  life,  the  straitened  means  of 
such  subsistence,  the  very  frequent  destitution  and  pauperism 
which  attend  or  follow  such  suffering,  death  statistics  testify 
only  in  sample  or  by  suggestion."  * 

Few  people  realise  the  infinite  importance  of  health  to  a 
great  community. 

As  one  of  the  Medical  Officers  of  Health  truly  wrote  : — 

"It  is  a  question  whether  the  greatness  of  countries  will 
not  in  future  to  a  very  large  extent  depend  upon  the 
standard  of  public  health." 

One  of  the  very  best  and  most  experienced  of  the  men 
who  held  the  responsible  office  of  Medical  Officer  of  Health 
during  the  last  half  century — Dr.  Bateson,  the  Medical 
Officer  of  Health  for  St.  George  in  Southwark — in  his 
reports  often  dwelt  upon  this  aspect  of  the  subject : — 

"  The  only  true  and  lasting  foundation  upon  which  the 
glory  and  safety  of  a  nation  can  be  built  must  be  upon  the 
cultivation  of  the  moral  and  physical  powers  belonging  to 
man." 

"...  The  quality  of  a  race  is  of  far  more  importance 
than  the  quantity." 

"Health  to  the  majority  of  the  population  is  their  only 
wealth  ;  without  it  they  become  pauperised." 

"  The  welfare  and  safety  of  this  country  need  a  healthy, 
stalwart  race  of  men — men  who  can  labour  and  endure." 

And  in  his  last  report  (1878),  after  twenty  years'  service 
as  Medical  Officer  of  Health,  he  quoted  the  Prime  Minister 
(Lord  Beaconsfield)  as  saying  : — 

"  The  health  of  a  people  was  really  the  foundation  upon 

*  J.  Simon,  vol.  ii.,  1874. 


OF   LONDON  287 

which  all  their  happiness  and  all  their  powers  as  a  state 
depended.  If  the  population  of  a  country  was  stationary, 
or  that  it  yearly  diminished,  or  that  whilst  it  diminished  it 
diminished  also  in  stature  and  strength,  then  that  country 
was  ultimately  doomed." 

"  Nothing,"  said  Dr.  Bateson,  "  could  be  more  solemn 
and  emphatic." 

"  For  the  success  and  permanence  of  national  existence  a 
high  standard  of  health  is  absolutely  necessary.  To  main- 
tain in  its  integrity  the  vast  power  which  England  now 
wields,  and  to  retain  the  high  position  which  she  now  holds 
will  depend  upon  the  nation's  health." 

Before  considerations  such  as  these,  how  lamentable  the 
blindness  of  those  who  could  not  see  that  even  a  measurable 
expenditure  in  health  matters  would  have  been  productive 
of  immeasurable  benefits  ;  how  reprehensible  the  conduct  of 
those  who  refused  to  administer  laws  which  it  was  their 
duty  to  administer,  and  the  administration  of  which  would 
have  been  of  inestimable  value  to  their  fellow  citizens  ;  and 
how  disastrous  their  studied  inaction  to  the  great  metropolis, 
and  through  it,  to  the  nation  itself. 


CHAPTEE  V 

1881-1890 

The  census  of  1881  showed  that  the  population  of  London 
was  3,816,483  persons — an  increase  this  time  of  well  over 
half  a  million  of  persons  in  the  decade. 

In  the  central  parts  of  London,  with  the  single  exception 
of  Clerkenwell,  the  resident  population  continued  to  decrease. 
In  the  City,  the  decrease  was  nearly  one-third;  in  the 
Strand  nearly  a  fifth,  and  the  parish  of  St.  George,  Hanover 
Square,  was  now  added  to  the  list  of  those  on  the  decline. 

In  the  East,  in  Whitechapel,  Shoreditch,  and  St.  George- 
in-the-East,  the  population  had  declined,  whilst  in  Bethnal 
Green  the  increase  had  been  at  a  much  slower  rate.  But 
Mile-End-Old-Town,  where  there  had  been  a  good  extent  of 
unbuilt-on  ground,  had  added  over  12,000  to  its  population ; 
and  Poplar  over  40,000. 

In  the  North,  with  the  single  exception  of  St.  Marylebone, 
all  the  parishes  showed  increases ;  Hackney,  the  great 
increase  of  over  60,000,  and  IsHngton  the  still  larger  one 
of  nearly  70,000. 

In  the  West,  there  were  large  increases  in  Paddington 
and  Chelsea,  in  Kensington  an  increase  of  over  42,000,  and  in 
Fulham  over  48,000.  In  the  parishes  nearer  the  centre — 
St.  George,  Hanover  Square,  St.  James'  (Westminster),  and 
Westminster,  the  population  had  decreased. 

On  the  south  side  of  the  river,  with  the  exception  of  the 
parishes  of  St.  Olave,  and  St.  Saviour — both  in  Southwark, 
and  near  the  City — every  parish  or  district  showed  an 
increase.     Notably  was  this  the  case  in  Camberwell,  where 


OF  LONDON  289 

the  increase  was  75,000,  and  most  remarkable  of  all, 
Wandsworth,  where  the  huge  increase  of  over  85,000 
persons  was  recorded. 

Thus  the  movements  of  population  were  shown  by  this 
census  of  1881  to  be  very  much  on  the  same  lines  as  those 
in  1871 — a  diminution  in  the  central  parts,  and  increases  of 
various  magnitudes  in  the  outer  parts. 

Interesting  information  was  once  more  given  as  regarded 
the  constituent  parts  of  the  population. 

It  was  shown  that  of  the  residents  in  London  in  1881,  the 
proportion  of  persons  born  in  London  was  practically  the 
same  as  in  1871.  Of  every  1,000  inhabitants  in  London, 
628  were  born  in  London,  308  in  the  rest  of  England 
and  "Wales,  13  in  Scotland,  and  21  in  Ireland — the  rest 
elsewhere. 

The  flow  of  people  from  the  country  to  London  was  thus 
continuing  at  much  the  same  rate,  and  the  metropolis  was 
still  being  fed  with  labour  at  the  expense  of  the  agricultural 
districts.* 

"  A  contingent  untrained  in  the  pursuits  of  town  life  " 
was  thus  annually  thrown  upon  the  labour  market  of 
London.  But  they  imported  a  fresh  strain  of  healthy 
country  people  into  the  constituent  elements  of  the  town 
population,  and  helped  to  stay  part  of  the  deterioration 
which  necessarily  ensued  from  the  insanitary  conditions  of 
life  in  London. 

As  to  the  causes  of  the  shifting  of  the  population  in 
London,  the  same  story  continued  to  be  told  by  the  Medical 
Officers  of  Health. 

Thus  the  Medical  Officer  of  Health  for  the  Strand  wrote 
(1882-3)  :— 

"  The  material  decrease  in  population  is  largely  connected 
with  the  gradual  transition  of  houses  from  residences  into 
business    premises,   the    construction    of    new  and    wider 

*  To  the  then  existing  population  of  London. 

The  South  Eastern  Counties  contributed  close  on  290,000 

,,     South  Midland       ,,                 „  „  „  249,000 

„    Eastern                   „                 „  „  „  196,000 

„     South  Western       ,,                 „  „  „  168,000 

„    West  Midland        „                 „  „  „  95,000 
20 


290       THE   SANITARY   EVOLUTION 

thoroughfares,  and  the  erection  of  public  buildings,  com- 
bined with  the  resulting  consequence  inevitably  associated 
with  such  changes,  a  considerable  augmentation  in  the 
rental  or  annual  value  of  house  property." 

In  St.  James'  (1882)— 

"The  large  decrease  of  population  (3,754  in  last  decade), 
coupled  with  the  fact  that  the  rateable  value  still  has  an 
upward  tendency,  clearly  shows  that  the  character  of  the 
parish  is  undergoing  rapid  change — offices,  warehouses,  and 
clubs  taking  the  place  of  residences  as  the  centre  of  trade 
continues  to  increase  and  move  westward,  and  greater 
facilities  are  afforded  for  business  men  to  live  in  the 
suburbs." 

Some  of  the  Medical  Officers  of  Health  were  perturbed  by 
the  class  of  persons  coming  into  their  district.  Thus  the 
Medical  Officer  of  Health  for  Whitechapel  drew  attention  to 
the  fact  that  of  the  70,435  people  in  his  parish  no  fewer  than 
9,660  were  foreigners,  mostly  Russian  and  Polish  Jews. 
Others  of  them  were  feeling  anxious  under  the  ever  increas- 
ing numbers. 

The  Medical  Officer  of  Health  for  Paddington  wrote 
(1881)  :— 

"  Occupying,  as  the  population  of  Paddington  does,  a 
limited  area  with  definite  boundaries  which  do  not  admit  of 
extension,  a  continually  increasing  population  can  only  mean 
a  continually  increasing  complexity  of  the  problems  of  sani- 
tation." 

Upon  one  most  interesting  point  as  regarded  the  influx  of 
population  into  London  the  Medical  Officer  of  Health  for 
Lambeth  threw  some  valuable  light.* 

"  The  evil  of  overcrowding  is  aggravated  by  causes  which 
derive  their  origin  from  the  effects  of  that  condition  itself. 
A  lowered  standard  of  health,  always  the  accompaniment  of 
close  building,  is  a  factor  in  the  further  increase  of  pressure 
in  an  already  congested  district.  An  unsatisfied  demand  in 
the  labour  market  for  physical  strength  is  a  necessary  out- 
come of  that  quality  in  the  district  affected.     Muscle  and 

*  The  report  was  made  in  1887,  but  was  as  true  in  1881  as  it  was  in 
1887. 


OF   LONDON  291 

bone  in  such  a  locality  is  at  a  premium,  and  that  which 
cannot  be  supplied  in  its  full  development  from  within  must 
be  sought  and  obtained  from  without." 

"Here,  then,  is  a  vicious  circle  of  concurrent  cause  and 
effect.  Overcrowding  is  the  cause  of  physical  weakness  : 
physical  weakness  results  in  an  unsatisfied  demand  in  the 
labour  market :  the  unsatisfied  demand  is  the  cause  of  an  in- 
flux from  without :  again  that  influx  results  in  overcrowding." 

Once,  then,  that  the  influx  of  the  physically  strong  began 
to  diminish — the  element  which  had  contributed  most  to  the 
maintenance  of  the  physical  vigour  and  health  of  the  popula- 
tion of  London — it  was  evident  that  deterioration  would 
ensue,  and  the  only  means  of  counteracting  that  result  was 
to  improve  to  the  utmost  possible  the  sanitary  conditions 
in  which  the  people  lived. 

The  census  of  1881  is  remarkable  as  being  the  last  to  show 
an  increase  of  country-born  immigrants  into  London.  That 
tide  was  soon  to  begin  to  ebb. 

The  immigrants,  however,  were  far  from  being  all  of  a 
desirable  character. 

The  Medical  Officer  of  Health  for  Camberwell  pointed 
this  out : — 

"  A  considerable  percentage  of  our  population  is  composed 
of  persons  whose  natural  tendency  is  to  grovel — beggars, 
thieves,  prostitutes,  drunkards,  persons  of  feeble  intelligence, 
persons  of  lazy  and  improvident  habits,  and  persons  who 
(like  too  many  of  the  poor)  marry  or  cohabit  prematurely 
and  procreate  large  families  for  which  they  are  totally  unable 
to  provide  ;  and  such  persons  gravitate  from  all  quarters  to 
large  towns  and  there  accumulate.  ...  A  large  town  like 
London  will  always  attract  undesirable  residents." 

With  the  increasing  population  the  number  of  houses  in 
the  metropolis  increased  also. 

From  418,802  inhabited  houses  in  1871  the  number  had 
gone  up  to  488,116  in  1881,  and  the  same  tale  was  told  as  to 
the  crowding  of  houses  on  the  land  as  in  previous  years. 

The  Medical  Officer  of  Health  for  Bethnal  Green  (1880) 
stated  that  in  his  parish  most  of  the  available  ground  was 
already  fully  built  over.     The  Great  Eastern  Eailway  Com- 


292       THE   SANITARY   EVOLUTION 

pany,  the  School  Board  for  London,  and  the  Metropolitan 
Board  of  "Works,  were  largely  demolishing  small  house 
property.  "  If  this  sort  of  thing  goes  on  much  longer,"  he 
wrote,  "it  looks  very  much  as  if  London  in  a  few  years 
would  become  a  huge  agglomeration  of  Board  Schools,  inter- 
sected by  railways  and  new  streets." 

The  correct  record  of  the  population  enabled  once  more 
an  accurate  death-rate  to  be  calculated.  The  death-rate, 
which  had  been  24-6  per  1,000  in  1871,  had  fallen  to  21-3  in 
1881. 

That  was  most  gratifying  testimony  to  the  good  results 
following  the  sanitary  work  carried  out,  under  many  diffi- 
culties, in  London,  and  an  encouragement  to  perseverance. 

The  vital  subject  of  the  housing  of  the  huge  masses  of  the 
people  of  London  was,  during  all  the  earlier  years  of  this 
decade  of  1881-90,  uppermost  in  the  minds  of  those  who 
were  solicitous  for  their  welfare. 

The  Act  of  1879  had  done  but  little  to  help  to  a  solution 
of  the  tremendous  problem. 

A  short  experience  of  it,  and  of  "  Cross's  "  Housing  Act, 
had  shown  that  instead  of  "  owners  "  being  visited  with 
heavy  penalties  for  their  iniquities,  they  were  being  actually 
rewarded.  In  fact,  they  secured  under  these  Acts  not  only 
a  full,  but  an  inordinately  high  compensation  for  their 
property — regardless  of  its  infamous  condition — and  the 
ratepayers  of  London  were  mulcted  in  large  sums  to  pay 
them  for  it. 

"  I  desire,"  said  the  Medical  Officer  of  Health  for 
Hackney  in  1883,  "  to  express  a  very  strong  opinion  that  it 
is  most  unfair  to  the  ratepayers  that  they  should  be  compelled 
to  pay  for  uninhabitable  property  which  has  been  allowed  by 
the  owners  to  get  into  a  dilapidated  state  for  want  of  sub- 
stantial repairs  such  as  cannot  be  required  under  the 
Nuisances  Bemoval  Acts.  ..." 

The  first  scheme  which  was  initiated  by  the  Metropolitan 
Board  in  1875  was  only  completed  at  a  net  cost  of  ^161,763, 
which  sum  had  to  be  borne  by  the  ratepayers  of  London ; 
though  why  they  should  have  been  made  to  pay  for  the 
"owners"  neglect  which  had  led  to  the  evil  conditions  of 


OF  LONDON  293 

his  property  is  not  very  clear,  except  that  Parliament  willed 
it  so. 

By  1882  the  total  number  of  insanitary  areas  dealt  with 
by  the  Metropolitan  Board,  or  in  process  of  being  dealt  with, 
was  fourteen.  The  houses  in  these  areas  had  been  inhabited 
by  20,335  persons  in  5,555  separate  holdings,  3,349  of  which 
consisted  of  one  room  only.* 

They  were  acquired  by  the  Board  at  a  cost  of  i91, 661,000. 
Parliament  had  imposed  upon  the  Board  the  obligation  to 
provide  accommodation  for  at  least  as  many  persons  of  the 
working  classes  as  were  displaced  by  the  destruction  of  the 
houses  on  these  areas.  As  the  Board  were  not  empowered 
to  undertake  the  building  of  the  houses  in  which  to  re- 
accommodate  the  displaced  persons,  the  sites,  after  having 
been  cleared,  had  to  be  sold  to  persons  or  companies,  who 
were  put  under  the  obligation  to  erect  workmen's  dwellings 
thereon ;  but  inasmuch  as  the  land  had  been  bought  at  its 
value  for  commercial  purpose,  which  was  far  higher  than 
its  value  for  residential  houses,  this  Parliamentary  obliga- 
tion entailed  upon  the  Metropolitan  Board,  and  through 
them  upon  the  ratepayers  of  London,  an  enormous  loss. 

The  Goulston  Street  scheme  in  Whitechapel,  for  instance, 
was  acquired  at  a  cost  of  £B11,600.  When  sold,  under  the 
conditions  imposed  by  Parliament,  it  realised  only  ^987,600 ; 
and  the  Whitecross  Street  scheme  (in  St.  Luke's),  which  cost 
^£391,000,  when  sold  reahsed  ^676,350. 

The  whole  of  the  transactions,  so  far,  resulted  in  a  net  loss 
to  the  Metropolitan  Board,  or  in  other  words,  a  net  charge 
upon  the  ratepayers  of  London  of  over  ^61, 100, 000. 

As  Mr.  Chamberlain  described  the  result,  in  an  article  he 
contributed  to  the  Fortnightly  Beview  of  December,  1883  : — 

"Torrens'  and  Cross'  Housing  Acts  are  tainted  and 
paralysed  by  the  incurable  timidity  with  which  Parliament 
...  is  accustomed  to  deal  with  the  sacred  rights  of 
property.  .  .  . 

"  The  individual  wrong-doer  is  to  remain  unpunished — 
retribution  for  his  sins  is  to  be  exacted  from  the  whole 
community." 

=■=  See  Report  of  Select  Committee,  1882,  p.  v. 


294       THE   SANITARY  EVOLUTION 

The  enormous  cost  of  carrying  the  Acts  into  effect  stayed 
the  hand  of  the  Metropolitan  Board,  while  the  length  of 
time,  stretching  out  into  years,  required  for  the  various  pro- 
ceedings, militated  against  the  success  of  the  schemes  so  far 
as  providing  residences  for  the  displaced  people. 

An  example  of  the  working  of  the  Act  was  described  in 
1883  by  the  Kev.  S.  A.  Barnett.* 

"  In  1876  the  dwellings  of  4,000  persons  in  this  parish 
(Whitechapel)  were  condemned  as  uninhabitable,  and  the 
official  scheme  for  their  demolition  and  reconstruction  was 
prepared.  During  the  next  four  years  the  '  scheme '  ploughed 
its  course  through  arbitration  and  compensation  with  a 
puzzling  slowness. 

"  It  was  indeed  a  *  killing  slowness,'  for,  during  all  those 
years,  landlords  whose  claims  had  been  settled  spent  nothing 
on  further  repairs ;  tenants,  expecting  their  compensation, 
put  up  with  any  wretchedness ;  while  the  Vestry,  looking  to 
the  approaching  reconstruction  of  the  houses,  let  streets  and 
footways  fall  to  pieces.  It  was  not  until  1880  that  the 
needful  demolition  was  seriously  begun.  Since  that  date  the 
houses  of  some  thousands  of  the  poor  have  been  destroyed." 

And  then  he  described  the  slowness  of  the  reconstruction, 
and  added : — 

"  Such  is  the  seven  years'  history  of  the  Artizans'  Dwel- 
lings Act  in  a  parish  under  the  rule  of  the  Metropolitan 
Board  of  Works." 

He  expressed  his  opinion  that  the  prime  source  of  the  evil 
was  not  in  the  law,  but  in  the  local  administration ;  but  the 
complications  of  ownership,  the  endless  legal  difficulties  and 
formalities,  the  numerous  arbitrations,  necessarily  consumed 
years  of  time  before  the  land  could  be  cleared  for  building, 
and  then  the  actual  building  of  the  new  houses  was  by  no 
means  rapid. 

The  mode  of  procedure  was  attended  with  such  difficulties 
and  disadvantages,  and  the  administration  of  the  Acts  so 
clogged,  that  a  Select  Committee  of  the  House  of  Commons 
was  appointed  and  sat  in  1881,  and  again  in  1882,  to  inquire 
into  the  causes  of  the  want  of  success,  and  to  consider  in 
*  Times,  20th  November,  1883. 


OF  LONDON  295 

what  way  the  law  might  be  further  amended  so  as  to  make 
it  really  workable. 

The  condition  imposed  as  to  re-housing,  and  which  was 
so  rigorously  insisted  on,  did  not  by  any  means  achieve  the 
desired  result. 

According  to  Mr.  Lyulph  Stanley*  in  1884:  **Not 
one  single  person  of  all  the  poor  displaced  in  the  carrying 
out  of  the  Gray's  Inn  Eoad  improvement,  powers  for  which 
were  obtained  in  1877,  had  been  re-housed  by  the  Board." 

The  Medical  Officer  of  Health  for  Whitechapel,  in  his 
evidence  in  1881,  also  showed  that  many  of  those  in  the 
houses  which  were  to  be  pulled  down  were  not  working  men 
at  all. 

"Many  of  the  people  do  not  come  into  the  Whitechapel 
District  for  the  purpose  of  getting  employment.  They  have 
other  motives ;  they  come  from  all  parts  of  the  country ;  a 
great  many  are  tramps,  and  come  up  for  the  purpose  of 
begging,  some  for  stealing,  and  some  to  obtain  the  advantage 
of  the  charities  which  exist  in  London,  and  many  of  them  to 
get  out  of  the  way  and  hide  themselves." 

By  this  time,  moreover,  the  possibilities  of  getting 
accommodation  further  afield  was  beginning  to  come  into 
view. 

"  With  the  facilities  for  coming  by  the  early  trains  and 
the  various  tramways  that  we  have  now  at  a  cheap  rate, 
the  rents  of  many  of  the  inhabitants  of  Whitechapel  would 
not  be  increased  by  moving  from  it." 

That  the  obligation  to  re-house  was  imposed  alone  upon 
the  public  authorities  and  upon  railway  companies  was 
rather  inequitable.  In  many  districts  the  destruction  of 
houses,  and  the  unhousing  of  the  inhabitants,  was  carried 
out  on  a  far  larger  scale  by  private  owners,  and  no  such 
obligation  was  imposed  upon  them.  The  policy,  therefore, 
was  decidedly  onesided,  and  was  very  costly  to  the  ratepayer 
who  was  in  no  way  responsible  for  the  proceedings  of  the 
private  house-owner  who  had  caused  all  the  trouble. 

The  Committee  reported  in  June,  1882.  They  expressed 
their  opinion  that — 

*  See  his  speech  in  Parliament,  Hansard,  1884,  vol.  coxc,  p.  529. 


296       THE   SANITARY  EVOLUTION 

"  Nothing  would  contribute  more  to  the  social,  moral,  and 
physical  improvement  of  a  certain  portion  of  the  working 
classes  than  the  improvement  of  the  houses  and  places  in 
which  they  live." 

They  stated  that  "  very  great  hardship  would  often  follow 
if  the  provision  for  the  replacement  in  or  near  the  area  of 
displacement  were  wholly  done  away  with." 

"  The  special  calling  of  many  of  the  work  people,  the 
hours  of  their  work,  the  employment  of  their  children,  the 
maintenance  of  their  home  life,  the  economy  of  living 
together  in  a  family,  the  cheapness  of  food  owing  to  the 
nearness  of  the  great  evening  markets,  &c.,  render  it  very 
desirable  that  a  large  portion  should  be  enabled  to  re-house 
themselves  in  or  near  their  old  houses  of  living,  and  if  no 
fresh  dwellings  be  provided  the  evils  of  overcrowding  will  at 
once  increase. 

"  Still,  it  is  equally  true  that  these  observations  do  not 
apply  to  the  whole  population.  Many  without  any  special 
calling  may  live  in  one  place  as  well  as  another.  The 
facilities  of  transit  recently  offered  by  cheap  trains,  by  boats, 
by  tramways,  &c.,  have  enabled  many  to  live  in  the  suburbs 
who  can  do  so  consistently  with  their  calling." 

"Your  Committee  are  of  opinion  that  the  existing  law, 
which  requires  that  the  improvement  scheme  shall  provide 
for  the  accommodation  of,  at  the  least,  as  many  persons  of 
the  working  class  as  may  be  displaced,  may  be  relaxed,  and 
that  the  accommodation  to  be  required  should  vary  from 
half  to  two-thirds." 

As  a  matter  of  fact  very  few,  if  any,  of  the  families  thus 
dispossessed  returned  for  the  purpose  of  occupying  the  new 
buildings. 

Indeed  one  witness  *  said  that — 

"  Neither  the  Peabody  Trustees,  nor — more  or  less — the 
other  Artizans'  Dwellings  Companies  would  take  in  the  class 
of  people  who  had  been  displaced." 

The  Committee  called  attention  to  the  importance  of 
favouring  in  every  way  facilities  of  transit  between  the 
*  Eobert  Eeid  (a  Surveyor),  p.  805. 


OF   LONDON  297 

metropolis  and  its  suburbs  by  an  extension  of  cheap  work- 
men's trains. 

And  they  also  recommended  that — 

"All  existing  sanitary  legislation  should  be  more  fully 
enforced,  especially  in  those  parts  of  the  suburbs  where 
buildings  are  so  rapidly  springing  up." 

A  Bill  was  at  once  introduced  into  Parliament,  the  object 
of  which  was  to  lay  down  such  rules  for  estimating  the  value 
of  the  premises  to  be  purchased  as  would  prevent  the  owners 
of  insanitary  property  obtaining  an  undue  price  for  it — "  the 
intention  of  Parliament  being  that  the  owner  should  not 
gain  by  having  allowed  his  property  to  fall  into  an  insanitary 
state." 

It  was  passed,  and  as  an  Act  it  further  empowered  the 
Secretary  of  State,  under  certain  circumstances,  to  dispense 
with  the  obligation  of  re-housing  the  people  to  a  greater 
extent  than  one-half  of  those  displaced. 

Into  the  detailed  intricacies  of  many  of  these  Housing 
Acts  it  is  really  useless  to  enter;  and  the  enumeration  of 
the  details  tends  to  obscure  the  broad  and  essential  features 
of  the  whole  subject. 

In  the  effort  of  the  "owners"  to  repudiate  the  responsi- 
bility for  their  or  their  predecessors'  infamous  neglect,  and 
to  shift  the  blame  for  the  appalling  state  of  affairs  on  the 
middlemen  and  the  occupiers  ;  in  the  effort  of  the  middlemen 
to  evade  their  responsibilities  by  availing  themselves  of  every 
obstructive  device  the  law  so  lavishly  placed  at  their  disposal, 
and  of  both  of  them  to  extort  the  utmost  amount  of  money 
they  could  for  their  disease-begetting,  death-distributing 
property ;  the  unfortunate  occupiers  were  the  immediate 
sufferers  and  victims,  and  a  huge  wrong  and  injury  was 
inflicted  upon  the  community. 

It  was  mere  tinkering  with  the  subject  to  pass  an  Act 
removing  some  petty  technical  difficulties  for  putting  some 
previous  and  very  limited  Act  in  force,  and  to  diminish  the 
expense  and  delay  in  carrying  out  the  Act. 

It  was  farcical  to  amend  the  Standing  Orders  of  Parliament, 
fixing  twenty  instead  of  fifteen  as  the  minimum  number  of 
houses  in  any  one  parish  which  could  be  acquired  by  the 


298       THE   SANITARY  EVOLUTION 

Metropolitan  Board  without  preparing  a  re-housing  scheme, 
as  if  that  would  revolutionise  the  condition  of  the  housing 
of  the  people  of  London,  and  yet  something  not  far  short  of 
revolution  was  required  if  the  housing  of  the  people  was  to 
be  reformed,  and  put  on  a  proper  sanitary  basis. 

It  is  manifest  that  what  was  being  dealt  with  by  these 
Acts  was  only  a  fragment  of  the  great  housing  question,  and 
that  such  destruction  of  insanitary  buildings  as  could 
possibly  be  effected  by  these  means  would  amount  to  but  a 
fraction  of  those  unfit  for  human  habitation  in  London,  and 
would  not  touch  the  thousands  of  inhabited  houses  in  every 
parish  of  London  which  were  insanitary  in  varying  degree, 
and  dangerous  to  the  individual  and  public  health.  It  is 
clear,  too,  that  if  the  insanitary  conditions  of  the  housing 
of  the  people  were  to  be  dealt  with  on  a  large  scale,  and  with 
success,  measures  must  be  taken  to  secure  the  sanitary  con- 
dition of  the  houses  which  such  legislation  did  not  touch. 
Otherwise  general  improvement  was  impossible,  and  existing 
conditions  must  continue  indefinitely  to  flourish,  and  to  pro- 
duce their  inevitable  and  enormous  crop  of  deadly  evil. 

How  urgent  was  the  need  for  reform  in  some  parts  of 
London  may  be  gauged  from  the  description  of  the  condition 
of  things  in  Bethnal  Green  in  1883,  given  by  the  Medical 
Officer  of  Health  of  the  Parish :  — 

"  The  portions  of  the  district  I  have  examined  include 
nearly  2,000  houses. 

"  I  have  visited  and  carefully  examined  almost  every  one  of 
these  houses,  and  I  must  confess  that  a  condition  of  things 
has  been  thereby  revealed  to  me  of  which  I  had  no  previous 
conception,  for  I  do  not  think  I  visited  a  single  house 
without  finding  some  grave  sanitary  defect ;  in  a  very  large 
number  the  walls  of  the  staircases,  passages,  and  rooms 
are  black  with  filth,  the  ceilings  are  rotten  and  bulging,  the 
walls  damp  and  decayed,  the  roofs  defective,  and  the  venti- 
lation and  lighting  most  imperfect. 

"  The  dampness  of  the  walls  is  in  some  instances  due  to 
defects  in  the  roof,  but  in  many  the  moisture  rises  from  the 
earth  owing  to  the  walls  being  constructed  without  any 
damp-proof  course.   .  .  . 


OF  LONDON  299 

"  In  almost  every  house  I  visited  I  found  the  yard,  paving, 
and  surface  drainage,  in  a  more  or  less  defective  condition, 
a  quantity  of  black  foetid  mud  having  accumulated  in 
places." 

And  all  this  was  nearly  thirty  years  after  Bethnal  Green 
had  been  endowed  with  a  local  sanitary  authority. 

Keturns  given  occasionally  by  the  Medical  Officers  of 
Health  revealed  the  appalling  state  of  insanitation  in  which 
people  still  lived  ;  streets  where  in  nearly  every  house 
nuisances  dangerous  to  health  were  found  to  exist ;  a 
"Place"  in  St.  Pancras  where  the  death-rate  in  1881  had 
been  57  per  1,000,  or  2^  times  as  much  as  that  for  London ; 
a  "  Place  "  in  St.  Marylebone  with  22  six-roomed  houses, 
where  the  births  were  less  in  number  than  the  deaths, 
and  the  existing  population  were  extinguishing  themselves. 
And  overcrowding  had  increased  in  many  parts  of  the 
metropolis,  and  some  of  the  Medical  Officers  of  Health  had 
come  to  regard  it  as  inevitable  and  impossible  to  prevent. 

The  reports  of  the  Select  Committees  of  1881  and  1882, 
and  the  outbreak  of  cholera  in  Egypt  in  1883  which 
awakened  apprehensions  of  its  spread  to  England,  quickened 
public  interest  in  the  sanitary  condition  of  the  metropolis, 
evoked  a  stronger  expression  of  public  opinion  upon  the 
existing  evils,  stirred  up  lethargic  Vestries  and  District 
Boards  to  some  special  show  of  activity,  and  awakened  the 
Local  Government  Board,  and  brought  it  into  the  field  as 
an  active  inciter  of  the  local  sanitary  authorities  to  adequate 
efforts  to  improve  the  sanitary  condition  of  the  people, 
and  to  grapple  with  the  terrible  problems  of  insanitary 
dwellings,  of  overcrowding,  and  the  consequent  physical 
misery  and  degradation  of  hundreds  of  thousands  of  the 
people. 

The  position  of  affairs  had  become  clearer  than  it  had 
ever  been  before,  and  its  magnitude  and  importance  was 
beginning  to  be  appreciated,  and  the  iniquities  which  were 
being  allowed,  and  the  evils  which  were  tolerated,  were 
coming  more  into  the  light  of  day  and  were  being  better 
understood  and  realised.  Though  in  many  ways  there  had 
been  progress  and  improvement,  yet  in  many  others,  of  the 


300       THE  SANITARY  EVOLUTION 

most  vital  consequence,  it  was  evident  things  were  scarcely 
moving  at  all. 

It  was  now  manifest  that  at  the  rate  the  demolition  of 
slums  and  the  re-housing  of  the  people  could  be  carried  out, 
a  very  great  length  of  time  must  elapse ;  so  great  that  the 
remedy  must  be  of  the  slowest,  whilst,  by  itself,  it  would  be 
wholly  inadequate;  and  it  was  beginning  to  be  realised  that 
many  of  the  local  authorities,  instead  of  administering  the 
laws  they  were  charged  by  Parliament  to  administer,  were 
even  obstructing  and  opposing  sanitary  reforms. 

Once  again  the  alarm  of  cholera  woke  up  the  Vestries, 
and  some  of  the  recorded  results  of  such  wakening  are  an 
illuminating  exposure  of  the  normal  state  of  inaction  on 
their  part,  and  of  the  chronic  insanitary  condition  of  their 
parishes  not  revealed  at  other  times. 

In  Westminster : — 

"In  anticipation  of  cholera  a  thorough  inspection  by  a 
house-to-house  visitation  through  the  whole  of  the  united 
parishes  has  been  undertaken.  Naturally  many  defects 
were  found,  and  directions  given  as  to  what  was  required. 
The  work  has  been  completed  and  I  consider  that  the 
parishes  are  now  in  a  very  satisfactory  condition." 

In  Poplar,  2,114  houses  were  inspected,  of  which  only  334 
were  found  to  be  in  good  order. 

In  Lambeth,  six  men  were  engaged  temporarily  for  the 
purpose  of  a  special  inspection. 

"  11,493  houses  were  visited ;  5,594  required  sanitary 
improvements.  ...  In  many  houses  several  defects  were 
reported,  bringing  up  the  total  of  sanitary  improvements  to 
12,014." 

In  Bermondsey,  no  fewer  than  5,992  notices  were  issued 
for  the  execution  of  sanitary  works  which  were  required. 

The  Sanitary  Act  of  1866  had  enacted  that — 

"  It  shall  be  the  duty  of  the  Nuisance  Authority  to  make, 
from  time  to  time,  either  by  itself  or  its  of&cers,  inspection 
of  the  district  with  a  view  to  ascertain  what  nuisances  exist 
calling  for  abatement  under  the  powers  of  the  Nuisances 
Eemoval  Acts,  and  to  enforce  the  provisions  of  the  said  Acts 
in  order  to  cause  the  abatement  thereof." 


OF   LONDON  301 

But  by  many  Vestries  the  duty  had  been  either  entirely 
neglected  or  very  imperfectly  performed. 

The  Medical  Officers  of  Health  were  unceasing  in  pressing 
upon  their  employers  the  necessity  of  inspection. 

"It  is  only  by  the  constant  inspection  and  re-inspection 
of  property  inhabited  by  tenants  of  this  class  (tenement- 
houses)  that  the  houses  can  be  kept  in  decent  sanitary 
condition,"  wrote  the  Medical  Officer  of  Health  for  Bethnal 
Green. 

"  My  opinion  of  the  value  of  regular  house-to-house 
inspection  throughout  the  year,"  wrote  the  Medical  Officer 
of  Health  for  Poplar,  "is  more  confirmed  than  ever,  and 
that  such  is  needed  for  the  proper  sanitary  supervision  of 
the  district." 

"It  is  by  constant  inspection,"  wrote  another  Medical 
Officer  of  Health,  "that  the  Vestry  can  best  do  its  duty  in 
preserving  the  lives  and  health  of  its  parishioners." 

"Facts  are  stubborn  things,"  wrote  the  Medical  Officer  of 
Health  for  St.  Mary,  Newington,  after  28  years'  sanitary 
work  himself,  "and  they  clearly  demonstrate  the  necessity 
for  a  continual  supervision  of  the  dwellings  of  the  poor 
(more  especially)  and  for  as  constant  an  attack  on  all 
removable  insanitary  conditions.  This  after  all  is  the 
real  work  to  be  done." 

But  the  Vestries  and  District  Boards  paid  little  heed  to 
this  advice. 

Naturally,  inspection  was  not  welcome  to  sanitary 
defaulters  or  misdoers ;  naturally,  the  light  of  the  sanitary 
policeman's  lantern  into  the  dark  places  of  slum-owners  and 
'  house-knackers  '  was  resented.  It  was  an  invasion  of  the 
rights  of  property,  of  the  privacy  of  an  Englishman's  home, 
even  if  he  did  not  live  in  that  home  himself,  but  let  it  to 
somebody  else  to  live  in.  "  Why  should  not  a  man  do  as 
he  liked  with  his  own  ?  " 

And  so,  as  inspection  was,  from  the  house  "owners'" 
point  of  view,  an  unpopular  thing,  too  much  money  was  not 
spent  by  Vestries  upon  Sanitary  Inspectors'  salaries,  and 
even  in  the  best  inspected  parishes  or  districts  the  portion 
inspected  was  small  indeed  compared  with  the  whole  of  the 


302       THE   SANITARY  EVOLUTION 

parish  or  district.  How  much  was  left  undone,  and  left 
undone  for  years,  was  proved  over  and  over  again  by  whole 
areas  being  represented  by  their  Medical  Of&cers  of  Health 
as  insanitary,  or  by  their  having  to  shut  up  houses  as  unfit 
for  human  habitation. 

The  attempt  made  by  Parliament  in  1866 — in  the  scheme 
embodied  in  the  35th  Section  of  the  Sanitary  Act — to 
provide  a  remedy  for  overcrowding,  and  to  secure  the 
maintenance  of  a  moderate  standard  of  cleanliness  and 
sanitation  in  the  tenement-houses,  had  been  an  excellent 
one ;  and  Parliament  improved  the  scheme  in  1874  by 
extending  its  scope.  Almost  the  whole  of  the  existing  evils 
lay  in  these  tenement-houses,  for  it  was  there  where  the 
great  mass  of  the  disease,  filth,  and  misery  of  London  was 
to  be  found,  and  there  where  the  greatest  overcrowding, 
and  the  deepest  moral  and  physical  degradation  existed. 

But  with  the  few  exceptions  already  described  practically 
no  use  had  been  made  of  the  powers. 

"Vested  rights  in  filth  and  dirt"  had  still  too  large  a 
representation  upon,  and  too  powerful  a  grip  of  the  local 
sanitary  authorities  for  any  action  to  be  adopted  which 
would  entail  trouble  upon  the  possessors  of  those  rights. 

Some  Vestries,  for  form's  sake,  had  made  regulations 
but  never  put  them  in  force.  A  few  had  tentatively  put 
them  in  force,  and  promptly  dropped  them.  A  large 
proportion  of  them  did  not  take  even  that  much  trouble,  but 
simply  ignored  them  altogether;  and  so,  some  seventeen 
years  after  the  Act  was  passed,  the  whole  scheme  had  ceased 
to  be  operative,  and  was  in  complete  abeyance. 

In  December,  1883,  the  Local  Government  Board,  having 
realised  the  gravity  of  the  situation,  endeavoured  to  get  the 
Vestries  and  District  Boards  to  take  action,  but  the  Local 
Government  Board  could  not  compel  them  to  make  such 
regulations,  as  there  was  no  power  of  compulsion,  and  there 
was  no  penalty  for  refusal  to  enforce  or  even  to  make  them.* 

The  Vestries  and  District  Boards  were,  in  fact,  masters  of 

*  The  regulations  suggested  by  the  Local  Government  Board  laid 
down  that  the  landlord  or  owner  should  not  allow  a  greater  number  of 
persons  to  occupy  a  room  than  would  admit  of  free  air  space  for  each  of 


OF  LONDON  303 

the  situation,  and  could  act  or  not  act,  just  as  they  pleased — 
and  most  of  them  did  not  act. 

Various  were  the  excuses  made  by  the  Vestries  for  doing 
nothing. 

The  feeling  which  prevailed  in  the  Vestry  of  Clerkenwell 
was  that — 

"  The  regulations  generally  were  of  such  an  inquisitorial 
and  troublesome  character  that  they  were  unsuited  to  an 
Englishman's  home.  For  instance,  it  was  shown  that  in 
some  cases  even  clergymen  occupied  lodgings  which  would 
be  reached  by  these  regulations." 

And  yet  there  were  4,700  houses  in  the  parish  to  which 
such  regulations  would  have  been  applicable,  and  where 
their  application  would  have  been  of  the  utmost  benefit  to 
thousands  of  families.  And  from  1866  up  to  1884  this  power 
might  have  been,  but  was  not  used. 

The  Vestry  of  Bethnal  Green  was — 

"Unanimously  of  opinion  that  it  was  unnecessary  to 
make  the  regulations,  and  considered  the  existing  powers 
sufficient." 

The  Vestry  of  St.  George-in-the-East  resolved — 

"  That  whilst  fully  recognising  the  necessity  of  continuing 
to  carry  out  with  vigour  the  general  sanitary  laws,  the  Vestry 
did  not  consider  it  advisable  in  the  present  depressed  condi- 
tion of  trade  in  the  parish  to  incur  the  additional  expense  of 
enforcing  special  sanitary  regulations  for  houses  let  in 
lodgings  "  (estimated  to  number  above  4,000). 

In  Westminster,  the  District  Board  resolved  that  no 
further  steps  should  be  taken  as  regarded  making  or  enforcing 
regulations,  as  the  Board — 

300  cubic  feet — if  used  exclusively  as  a  sleeping  room — or  400  feet  if 
used  day  and  night. 
He  was  to — 

(1)  Keep  the  drainage  in  good  working  order,  to  properly  pave  the 
yard,  and  provide  sufficient  sanitary  accommodation. 

(2)  Keep  the  cisterns  clean  and  in  proper  order,  and  keep  the  structure 
of  ashpit  in  proper  order. 

(3)  Cause  the  ceilings  and  walls  of  every  room  to  be  whitewashed  and 
papered  every  AprU. 

(4)  Provide  all  requisite  means  for  the  ventilation  of  every  room,  and 
of  the  common  passages  and  staircases  thereof. 

(5)  To  notify  cases  of  infectious  disease. 


304       THE   SANITARY  EVOLUTION 

"  Already  possessed  ample  powers  under  existing  statutes 
to  enable  it  to  deal  promptly  and  effectively  with  such 
sanitary  defects  as  the  proposed  regulations  are  intended  to 
remedy  "—a  contention  which,  if  true,  threw  discredit  upon 
themselves,  as  there  were  thousands  of  filthy  and  insanitary 
abodes  in  that  district  which  were  not  dealt  with  at  all. 

St.  Pancras  Vestry  refused  (1883)  to  make  regulations, 
though  its  Medical  Officer  of  Health  had  made  more  than 
one  appeal  to  them  to  do  so. 

"  I  would  beg  to  remind  the  Vestry  that  until  proper  regu- 
lations are  made  and  enforced  in  St.  Pancras  for  this  class 
of  houses,  the  Vestry  have  not  exercised  to  their  full  extent 
the  powers  they  possess  for  improving  the  condition  of  their 
poorer  parishioners,  and  that  the  moral  and  physical  welfare 
of  those  who  are  least  able  to  help  themselves  is  a  question 
which  concerns  the  Vestry  as  much,  if  not  more,  than  any 
other  it  is  their  duty  to  consider." 

And  in  the  following  year  he  wrote  : — 

"  Upon  the  Metropolitan  Sanitary  Authorities  rests  a  great 
responsibility,  for  it  is  absolutely  within  their  power  to  insist 
upon  all  dwelling-houses  being  maintained  in  condition  fit 
for  human  habitation,  and  they  may,  within  limits,  prevent 
overcrowding,  which  is  no  less  disastrous  to  health  than  to 
morality. 

"I  have  repeatedly  recommended  the  Vestry  to  adopt 
regulations  for  houses  let  in  lodgings,  and  have  pointed  out 
the  power  they  would  then  possess  for  ensuring  tenemented 
houses  being  maintained  in  proper  sanitary  condition.  I 
would  desire,  in  my  last  report,  to  urge  upon  them  the 
further  consideration  of  this  subject." 

There  were  doubtless  difficulties  in  putting  regulations 
such  as  these  in  operation — as,  indeed,  there  are  in  putting 
all  laws  in  operation — but  two  Vestries  had  put  them  most 
successfully  in  operation,  and  therefore  the  difficulties  were 
not  so  great  as  those  who  were  opposed  to  them  insisted. 

Some  of  the  Vestries  stated  that  they  could  equally  well 
attain  the  same  results  under  the  powers  of  the  Nuisances 
Kemoval  Acts ;  but  that  was  not  the  fact,  for  there  many 
and  considerable  advantages  in  this  form  of  procedure  over 


OF   LONDON  305 

the  procedure  prescribed  in  other  Acts  relating  to  health 
and  sanitation.  Indeed,  the  Medical  Officer  of  Health  for 
Fulham  declared  (in  1884)  that— 

"  This  section  gave  almost  all  the  legal  power  that  could 
be  wished  for  to  place  the  dwellings  of  the  poor  in  a  proper 
saaiitary  condition." 

And  in  the  following  year  he  wrote  : — 

"  It  will  therefore  in  future  be  the  fault  of  the  Sanitary 
Authority  if  the  dwellings  of  the  poor  are  not  kept  as  they 
should  be." 

The  Medical  Officer  of  Health  for  Camberwell,  discussing 
the  general  aspect  of  the  matter,  wrote  (1884)  : — 

"  I  cannot  help  remarking  on  the  feebleness  which  con- 
stantly spoils  the  best  intentioned  sanitary  legislation,  and 
which  is  conspicuous  in  the  enactments  relating  to  houses 
let  in  lodgings. 

"  The  Local  Government  Board  have  declared  that  certain 
enactments  are  in  force,  but  they  cannot  compel  the  Vestries 
to  frame  any  regulations  of  their  own,  nor  even  can  they 
compel  Vestries  to  carry  out  and  enforce  regulations  which 
the  Vestries  have  framed  and  the  Board  have  sanctioned. 

"  Now  I  am  one  of  those  who  think  that  by  the  judicious 
regulation  of  lodging-houses  of  certain  kinds,  and  in  certain 
localities,  very  much  good  might  be  effected,  and  much 
advantage  would  accrue  both  to  the  lodgers  and  to  the 
public.  But  it  is  clear  that  it  ought  never  to  have  been  left 
to  individual  Vestries  in  a  place  like  London,  to  adopt  or  not 
to  adopt,  the  enactments  referred  to,  simply  according  to 
their  pleasure,  still  more  that  they  should  never  have  been 
allowed  to  frame  inconsistent   orders   or  regulations.  .  .  . 

"The  opportunity  (of  the  Act  of  1874)  might  have  been 
seized,  not  for  giving  an  empty  power  to  the  Local  Govern- 
ment Board,  but  for  requiring  the  Metropolitan  Board  of 
Works  to  frame  suitable  regulations  for  the  whole  of  the 
metropolis,  which  the  Vestries  might  have  been  required  to 
enforce  as  they  are  required  to  enforce  other  provisions  of 
the  Sanitary  Acts." 

A  similar  opinion  was  expressed  by  the  District  Board  of 
St.  Olave,  Southwark,  which,  after  stating  that  it  had  been 

21 


306       THE   SANITARY   EVOLUTION 

one  of  the  first  to  make  regulations,  it  had  been  found  un- 
necessary or  impracticable  to  enforce  them,  went  on  to 
say  :— 

"  The  fact  of  the  enactment  having  been  practically  in- 
operative throughout  the  metropolis,  ...  it  was  considered 
that  it  would  be  unjust  to  enforce  stringent  regulations  in 
the  district,  while  in  other  parts  of  the  metropolis  regulations 
might  differ  in  principle,  and  be  neglected  in  practice  :  and 
what  the  Board  wanted  to  see  was  a  system  of  sanitary 
regulations  which  should  be  strictly  uniform  throughout 
the  metropolis,  and  in  which  there  should  be  no  option  on 
the  part  of  local  authorities  of  enforcing  or  neglecting." 

The  explanation  of  this  general  inaction  was  the  simple 
and  obvious  one  that  on  those  bodies  there  were  many  whose 
interests  ran  counter  to  the  adoption  of  the  Act,  and  what 
its  adoption  entailed ;  the  sanitary  obligations,  the  annual 
lime- washings,  &c.,  would  entail  expense ;  they  were  not 
going  to  inflict  the  cost  upon  themselves  or  upon  their 
friends  if  they  could  avoid  doing  so.  And  as  they  could 
avoid  it,  the  great  bulk  of  the  local  authorities  deliberately 
ignored  the  remedy  devised  by  Parliament,  and  with  most 
reprehensible  callousness  let  the  evils  go  on  and  increase. 
But  while  they  remained  inactive,  death  and  disease  did 
not. 

Progress  in  sanitation  was  retarded  also  somewhat  by 
other  circumstances. 

The  Medical  Officers  of  Health  were  under  no  obligation 
to  reside  in  their  district,  and  were  at  liberty  to  take  private 
practice,  and  so  the  whole  of  their  time  was  not  given  to 
their  public  duty.* 

But  furthermore,  they  were  in  a  state  of  dependence  on 
their  employers,  which  naturally  would  often  prevent  their 
reporting  fully  upon  sanitary  matters,  though,  happily, 
there  appear  to  have  been  few  who  were  influenced  by  this 
consideration.  And  some  of  the  Vestries  and  District 
Boards  did  not  hesitate  to  put  pressure  upon  their  Medical 
Officers  to  prevent  energy  on  their  part.  It  was  stated  in 
evidence  before  the  Select  Committee  in  1882  that  a 
*  Boyal  Commission,  1884. 


OF   LONDON  307 

Medical  Officer  would  very  soon  "  bring  a  hornet's  nest 
round  his  ears  if  he  attempted  to  do  his  duty  strictly  and 
independently." 

Lord  Shaftesbury  declared,  in  1884,*  that  he  was  quite 
certain  that — 

"  They  would  never  have  the  laws  of  health  properly 
given  effect  to,  until  they  asserted  the  independence  of  the 
Health  Officers." 

Nor  were  the  Sanitary  Inspectors  as  efficient  as  they 
might  have  been,  though  there  had  been  a  great  improve- 
ment in  the  class  of  man  appointed. 

The  Chief  Sanitary  Inspector  for  Clerkenwell  t  reported  : — 

"  The  two  men  (in  Clerkenwell)  are  not  very  active.  It 
is  the  greatest  trouble  I  have  to  get  the  men  to  do  their 
duty." 

"The  Sanitary  Inspectors  have  not  always  shown  as 
much  zeal  and  interest  as  they  might  have  done,  but  lately 
they  have  improved,  ...  It  is  openly  talked  about  in  a 
good  many  districts  in  London  that  a  system  of  bribing 
goes  on."  I 

But  those  who  were  energetic  were  also  discouraged  by 
the  same  pressure  which  damped  some  of  the  energies  of 
the  Medical  Officers  of  Health. 

The  Medical  Officer  of  Health  for  Fulham  wrote, 
in  1884:— 

*'  So  many  are  the  vested  interests  that  Sanitary  Officers 
are  obhged  in  the  performance  of  their  duty  to  interfere 
with,  that  they  must  be  prepared  to  meet  with  injustice  and 
opposition  in  almost  all  directions.  It  is  not  at  all 
surprising  that  the  dweUings  of  the  poor  in  London  should 
be  in  an  insanitary  condition  seeing  the  great  obstacles 
public  sanitary  officers  have  in  the  performance  of  their 
duties." 

And  yet  there  were  many  who  did  their  work  well,  and 
who  did  much  to  improve  the  conditions  of  living  of  those 
who  were  under  their  care  or  charge  ;  and  did  it  in  the  face 
of  many  obstacles  and  much  discouragement,  and  of  all  the 

*  Hansard,  1884. 

f  1884  Eoyal  Commission,  vol.  ii.  p.  2938. 


308       THE   SANITARY   EVOLUTION 

opposition  that  vested  interests  could  bring  to  bear  against 
them. 

Many  of  the  Vestries  and  District  Boards  were  not  only 
not  above  reproach,  but  were  strongly  to  be  condemned. 

Sir  Charles  Dilke,  then  President  of  the  Local  Govern- 
ment Board,  speaking  in  1883,  said  : — 

"  There  were  some  parishes  in  London  which  had  very 
zealously  tried  to  work  the  existing  law,  but,  on  the  other 
hand,  there  were  more  parishes  the  government  of  which 
was  a  flagrant  scandal." 

And  Mr.  Chamberlain,  in  an  article  in  the  Fortnightly 
Beview  of  December,  1883,  wrote : — 

**  In  the  metropolis,  where  the  evil  is  greatest,  the  want 
of  an  efficient  and  thoroughly  representative  municipal 
government  stands  in  the  way  of  reform. 

"  The  Vestries,  often  in  the  hands  of  cliques  and  chosen 
at  elections  which  excite  no  public  interest,  are  largely 
composed  of  small  house-property  owners,  who  cannot  be 
expected  to  be  enthusiastic  in  putting  the  law  in  force 
against  themselves." 

And  in  the  House  of  Commons,  on  the  4th  of  March, 
1884,  Sir  Charles  Dilke  stated  that— 

"  In  Clerkenwell,  the  two  joint  dictators  of  the  parish, 
who  had  control  of  the  Vestry  and  its  leading  Committee, 
one  of  them  being  Chairman  of  the  principal  Committee, 
were  the  largest  owners  in  the  whole  district  of  Clerkenwell 
of  bad  or  doubtful  property.  ...  In  Clerkenwell  there  were 
fourteen  house-farmers  on  the  Vestry  and  twelve  publicans 
who  seemed  to  work  very  much  with  them." 

Nothing  more  decisively  demonstrates  the  hostility  of  the 
Vestries  to  the  Act  of  1866,  indeed  to  all  this  branch  of 
sanitary  reform,  than  the  fact  that  they  would  not  make 
adequate  provision  for  the  performance  of  the  sanitary 
duties  imposed  on  them  by  divers  Acts  of  Parliament. 

A  return  compiled  by  the  Medical  Officer  of  Health  for 
Bethnal  Green  in  1885,  from  information  supplied  him  by 
the  Medical  Officers  of  Health  of  thirty-eight  Vestries, 
shows  how  the  local  sanitary  authorities  crippled  sanitary 
work  by  a  wholly  inadequate  staff  of  Inspectors. 


OF  LONDON 


309 


Number 

Number  of 

Parish  or  District. 

of                       Inhabitants  to 

Inspectors.                 each  Inspector 

Greenwich       

..      1 

.     148,545 

Newington       

..      1 

.     117,870 

MUe-End-Old-Town  ... 

..      1 

.     111,607 

Lambeth          

..     4 

.      69,683 

Poplar 

..     2 

.      86,671 

Bermondsey    ... 

..     1 

.       88,770 

Shoreditch       

..     2 

.      62,754 

St.  Pancras      

..     4 

.       60,889 

Paddington      

..     2 

.       55,567 

Marylebone 

..     3 

.       50,294 

Hackney          

..     4 

..       56,431 

Bethnal  Green 

..     2i 

.       51,958 

Camberwell 

..     4 

.       59,500 

In  the  whole  of  the  metropolis  there  were  103  Inspectors 
of  Nuisances — a  rough  average  of  one  Inspector  to  about 
40,000  of  the  population. 

How  could  it  be  expected  that  one  Inspector  could  look 
after  a  town  of  40,000  people? 

Consistently,,  and,  year  after  year,  insistently,  did  the 
bulk  of  the  Medical  Officers  of  Health  complain  of  the  lack 
of  sufficient  Sanitary  Inspectors,  and  point  out  the  necessity 
for  more  Sanitary  Inspectors ;  some  begged  for  them — but 
to  nearly  all  these  appeals  the  Vestries  turned  a  deaf  ear. 

Every  now  and  then  some  incident  occurred  or  some 
exposure  was  made  of  some  abominations  of  insanitation 
which  were  a  revelation  of  the  extraordinary  methods 
adopted  by  some  men  in  utilising  land  for  building  houses 
regardless  of  all  sanitary  consequences  whatever  to  others. 

In  the  Times  of  December  18,  1883,  an  article  was 
published  entitled  "  A  Curious  Site  for  Industrial  Dwellings." 

"  The  things  which  are  done  in  London  under  the  shadow 
of  legal  right  are  sometimes  startling." 

In  Bethnal  Green  were  two  disused  burial-grounds  — 
"  Globe  Fields  "  and  "  Peel  Grove."  Parliament  authorised 
a  railway  line  to  be  constructed  through  "  Globe  Fields." 

Foundations  had  to  be  made  for  the  arches,  and  trenches 
had  to  be  dug  in  the  burial-ground. 

The  Medical  Officer  of  Health,  on  inspecting  the  place, 
found  a  horrible  condition  of  things.  But  with  many 
precautions  against  loosing  some  virulent  epidemic  in  the 


310       THE   SANITARY  EVOLUTION 

locality,  the  human  remains  were  removed  and  re-interred 
elsewhere,  and,  it  is  stated,  part  of  the  ground  was  built 
over. 

Fuller  particulars  were  given  as  to  the  Peel  Grove 
Cemetery.  The  ground,  several  acres  in  extent,  had  been 
leased  by  a  pawnbroker  and  started  as  a  cemetery  as  a 
speculation.  The  statements  made  by  the  writer  in  the 
Times  are  specially  illuminating.  The  cemetery  was 
opened  about  1840  without  consecration.  The  Bishop 
refused  to  consecrate  the  ground  as  burials  had  taken  place 
in  it  already,  and  as  some  difficulties  were  consequently 
experienced,  the  speculating  pawnbroker  acted,  it  is  said, 
for  some  years  as  chaplain. 

Ultimately,  somehow  or  other,  a  chaplain  was  appointed. 

About  20,000  persons  had  been  buried  in  it,  six  deep,  and 
packed  as  closely  as  it  was  possible  to  pack  them — not  even 
earth  between  the  coffins,  so  anxious  was  the  owner  to 
economise  space ;  large  numbers  who  died  of  cholera  in 
1849  having  been  buried  there. 

The  last  interment  took  place  in  September,  1855. 

In  1883,  the  ground  having  served  one  financial  purpose, 
it  became  desirable  to  utilise  it  for  another  financial 
purpose,  and  the  proposal  was  made  to  erect  houses  upon  it, 
and  an  agreement  was  entered  into  with  a  builder  for  the 
erection  of  blocks  of  dwellings  thereon.  This  builder 
commenced  excavations  for  the  purpose  of  laying  founda- 
tions, and  he  had  sent  in  drainage  plans  for  a  block  of 
industrial  dwellings  to  the  Vestry  of  Bethnal  Green. 

"  Is  such  an  obvious  violation  of  the  laws  of  health  and 
decency  to  be  permitted  ?  "  said  the  writer. 

"  The  Vestry  are  alive  to  the  situation,  and  appear  to  be 
VTilling  to  do  all  in  their  power  to  avert  the  catastrophe. 
But  the  law  on  the  subject  is  by  no  means  clear.  ...  It 
is  little  short  of  scandalous  that  such  doubts  should 
exist.  It  is  repugnant  to  every  feeling  of  decency  and 
propriety  to  invite  human  beings  to  live  in  densely  packed 
crowds  over  a  charnel-house." 

The  sanitary  condition  of  any  city  or  district  must,  as 
has  already  been    pointed   out,  depend   very  largely  upon 


OF   LONDON  311 

the  system  of  local  government  in  existence  at  the  time, 
and  its  efficiency  or  inefficiency. 

This  was  specially  true  of  this  great  metropolis  with  its 
millions  of  people,  its  vast  extent,  its  great  diversities. 

To  all  intents  and  purposes  the  main  features  of  the  local 
government  of  London  had  undergone  little  change  since 
1855.  There  was  still  the  "  City "  with  its  special  law, 
special  area,  and  special  government,  to  which  had  been 
added  the  Port  Sanitary  Authority. 

And  there  was  the  Central  Authority,  the  Metropolitan 
Board  of  Works;  and  there  were  the  local  sanitary  authorities, 
the  Vestries  and  District  Boards — and  to  them  had  been 
added  the  Metropolitan  Asylums  Board,  another  indirectly 
elected  central  body.  But  there  were  very  manifest  and 
prominent  defects  of  the  very  gravest  nature  in  this  system 
of  London  government,  and  in  1884  the  Government  of  the 
day  made  an  effort  to  construct  a  better  system. 

Sir  William  Harcourt  introduced  the  London  Government 
Bill  into  the  House  of  Commons. 

"While  London  grew,"  he  said,*  "the  Corporation 
remained  stationary." 

"  The  central  body  must  deal  with  the  large  affairs,  ...  a 
central  body  doing  all  the  great  things." 

"  The  central  principle  of  the  Bill  is  this,  that  there 
should  be  some  common  control  over  the  Vestries  which 
shall  give  them  a  uniform  action  for  the  benefit  of  the 
whole  community  instead  of  leaving  them  as  they  now  are, 
independent  of  any  such  control." 

"What  is  the  great  evil?  It  is  that  the  metropolis  is 
broken  up  into  fragments  acting  on  a  different  principle, 
some  doing  ill,  and  those  who  do  well  suffering  in  con- 
sequence of  the  ill-doings  of  their  neighbours." 

"When  the  danger  (of  invasion  of  cholera)  threatens  a 
great  metropolis  like  London,  all  must  desire  and  want  a 
central  authority  which  should  advise,  which  should  assist, 
which  should  compel  every  part  of  the  community  to  take 
those  measures  of  precaution  which  are  necessary  for  the 
safety  of  the  whole.  No  such  authority  exists  at  this  time. 
*  Hansard,  1884,  vol.  cclxxxix.  p.  41. 


312       THE   SANITARY  EVOLUTION 

"  If  a  Vestry  refuses  to  make  sanitary  bye-laws,  or  to  carry 
out  a  proper  system  of  sanitary  inspection,  you  are  absolutely 
powerless  to  compel  them  to  do  so.  A  single  parish  may 
become  a  plague-spot  in  London  from  which  disease  may  be 
spread  all  around,  and  the  Metropolitan  Authority  have  no 
authority  to  make  the  parish  do  as  it  ought  to  do." 

Mr.  Gladstone  said  *  : — 

"  The  local  government  of  London  is,  or,  if  it  is  not,  it 
certainly  ought  to  be,  the  crown  of  all  our  local  and 
municipal  institutions. 

"  The  principle  of  unity  (of  London)  has  already  been 
established  under  the  pressure  of  necessity  as  a  matter 
which  could  not  be  resisted.  It  has  been  established  in 
the  Metropolitan  Board  of  Works.  .  .  .  There  can  be  no 
doubt  we  have  established  a  principle  of  unity,  and  that 
we  have  found  it  satisfactory. 

"  The  supply  of  water  and  the  supply  of  gas  .  .  .  two 
of  the  most  elementary  among  the  purposes  of  municipal 
government,  have  been  handed  over  to  private  Corporations 
for  the  purpose  of  private  profit  because  you  have  not  chosen 
to  create  a  complete  municipality  for  the  metropolis. 

"  And  that  is  not  all. 

"  The  defects  of  the  present  system  are  admitted.  .  .  . 
Surely  if  there  are  these  great  and  intolerable  defects  they 
ought  to  be  remedied  by  the  action  of  some  genuine  popular 
local  authority.  But  we  have  got  no  genuine  popular 
local  authority.  .  .  . 

"London,  large  as  it  is,  is  a  natural  unit — united  by 
common  features,  united  by  common  approximation,  by 
common  neighbourhood,  by  common  dangers — depending 
upon  common  supplies,  having  common  wants  and  common 
conveniences. 

"...  Unity  of  Government  in  the  metropolis  is  the  only 
method  on  which  we  can  proceed  for  producing  municipal 
reform." 

The  Bill  was  strongly  opposed  in  Parliament,  and  was 
withdrawn  at  a  late  period  of  the  Session,  "  but  its  intro- 
duction and  discussion  had  done  much  to  awaken  interest 
■''  Hansard,  1884,  vol.  ccxc.  p.  541. 


OF   LONDON  313 

and  mature  opinion  on  the  question  of  the  practicability  of 
the  government  of  London  by  a  single  municipality."  * 

Up  to  this  time,  though  overcrowding  had  occupied  so 
prominent  a  position  in  the  great  health  problem  of  London, 
no  returns  of  the  amount  of  overcrowding  actually  existing 
had  been  obtained,  nor  had  any  estimate  even  been  attempted. 
The  reports  of  the  Medical  Officers  of  Health  showed  in 
many  graphic  descriptions  that  overcrowding  was  prevalent 
in  every  part  of  London — more  acutely  so  in  some  districts 
than  in  others — but  as  to  the  amount  no  information  was 
available. 

The  first  reliable  figures  over  a  large  area — a  large  central 
district  of  London — were  collected  by  Mr.  T.  Marchant 
Williams,  Inspector  of  Schools  for  the  London  School 
Board,  and  published  in  the  Times  of  February  22,  1884. 

He  wrote  giving  some  of  the  results  of  his  recent  investi- 
gations into  the  social  conditions  of  the  people  residing  in 
his  district. 

"My  sole  desire,"  he  wrote,  *'  is  to  record  facts.  It  will 
be  my  endeavour  to  show  that  these  facts  are  sufficiently 
typical  or  representative  of  the  social  condition  of  the 
elementary  school  population  of  London  to  serve  as  a 
trustworthy  basis  for  a  fairly  accurate  estimate  of  the 
stupendous  difficulties  the  School  Board  for  London  has  to 
contend  with." 

"  The  Division  of  Finsbury  includes  the  following 
parishes  : — 


(1)  St.  Giles' -in-the-Fields 
(  St.  George-the- Martyr 

(2)  (  St.  Andrew,  Holborn 

Clerkenwell 


The  whole  population  in 
1881  =  503,851 ;  number 
of  children  of  school  age, 
3-13  =  91,128,     95     per 


St.  Luke  cent,  of  whom  have  been 

Stoke  Newington  J     scheduled  by  the  Officers 

Islington  I     of  the  School  Board." 

(1)  In  St.  Giles'-in-the-Fields  there  were  9  efficient 
elementary  schools,  4  churches,  6  chapels,  102  public - 
houses,  27  milk  shops. 

*  See  Eeport  of  Royal  Commission  on  the  Amalgation  of  the  City  and 
County  of  London,  1894. 


314       THE   SANITARY  EVOLUTION 

He  gave  the  number  of  families  scheduled  for  elementary 
school  purposes  residing  in  more  than  two  rooms  was  382, 
which  represents  about  14  per  cent,  of  the  whole  number  of 
scheduled  families. 

28  per  cent  of  the  families  lived  each  in  2  rooms  only, 
and  58      ,,  ,,  ,,  ,,  „       1  room  only. 

(2)  In  the  parishes  of  Bloomsbury,  St.  George-the- 
Mart5rr,  St.  Andrew,  Holborn,  and  part  of  St.  Giles'. 

The  number  of  families  scheduled  for  elementary  school 
purposes  residing  in  more  than  two  rooms  was  395,  which  is 
about  10  per  cent,  of  the  whole  number  of  scheduled  families. 

About  45  per  cent  lived  in  2  rooms  only. 
»       »         »  »       1  room  only. 

(3)  Lower  Division  of  Clerkenwell  and  St.  Luke's. 

The  number  of  families  scheduled  for  elementary  school 
purposes  residing  in  more  than  two  rooms  was  3,886,  which 
is  about  37  per  cent,  of  the  whole  number  of  scheduled 
families. 

33  per  cent  live  in  2  rooms  only. 
30       „  »i      1  room  only. 

He  gave  similar  information  as  regarded  three  other  sub- 
districts,  and  then  went  on  : — 

"  The  foregoing  statistics  show  that  there  were  at  the 
beginning  of  the  present  year,  in  the  Finsbury  division — 

"  10,490  families  consisting  of  41,044  persons,  living,  each, 
in  one  room  only,  and  17,210  families  consisting  of  82,215 
persons,  living,  each,  in  two  rooms  only,  a  total  of  123,259 
persons  living  in  one  or  two  rooms. 

"  For  every  efficient  elementary  school  in  the  division  there 
are  more  than  8  public-houses,  for  there  are  in  the  division 
111  efficient  schools,  while  the  public-houses  number  912  ; 
the  grocers'  shops,  682 ;  bakers'  shops,  409  ;  dairies,  350 ; 
coffee  shops,  427 ;  churches,  74  ;  chapels,  32  ;  mission  rooms, 
47  ;  registered  lodging-houses,  101." 


OF   LONDON  315 

And  then  he  summarised  his  figm:es  for  the  City  Division  : 

Number  of  children  of  school  age  =  6,986 
„  ,,  churches  and  chapels  =  71 
,,        ,,  public-houses  =     408 

Nmnber  of  families  living,  each,  in  more  than  two  rooms 
was  1,972,  which  is  about  33  per  cent,  of  the  scheduled 
families. 

About  43  per  cent,  live,  each,  in  2  rooms  only,  and 
nearly  24        „  „  ,,       1  room  only. 

The  Times  commented,  in  a  leading  article,  on  this 
information. 

"Everywhere,  and  by  all  sections  not  immediately 
affected,  the  scandal  and  almost  the  absurdity  of  the  brutish 
degradation  of  an  enormous  number  of  habitations  in  the 
greatest  and  most  opulent  city  in  the  world  are  thoroughly 
recognised.  .  .  '.  Habits  of  life  such  as  lodgings  of  the  kind 
now  common  among  London  workmen  foster  and  encourage 
are  a  positive  danger  to  the  whole  of  society.  Only  by  one 
rank  is  the  question  treated  as  of  no  pressing  importance. 
That  happens  to  be  the  body  of  persons  directly  interested. 

"...  No  more  instructive  contribution  has  been  offered 
towards  a  clear  perception  of  the  dimensions  of  the  problem 
than  those  given  by  Mr.  Marchant  "Williams.  .  .  . 

"Incidentally  the  census,  by  the  School  Board,  of  the 
classes  it  was  founded  to  teach,  contains  the  precise 
materials  for  informing  the  public  of  the  extent  of  the 
overcrowding  which  has  been  shocking  the  moral  sense  of 
the  nation.  Formerly,  when  instances  of  overcrowding 
were  cited,  it  might  have  been  fancied  they  were  exceptions 
or  exaggerations.  Mr.  Williams'  report  allows  of  no  pos- 
sibility of  a  doubt. 


"  The  Finsbury  educational  division  contained,  in  1881,  a 
population  of  503,851.  Of  these,  41,044  live  in  single 
rooms,  at  an  average  rate  of  four  a  room ;  82,215  occupy 
suites  of  two  rooms,  at  a  rate  exceeding  four  persons  and 


316       THE   SANITARY  EVOLUTION 

three-quarters  for  each.  For  a  family  of  two  to  monopoHse 
a  whole  room  is  a  luxury,  and  to  possess  two  rooms  is  a 
marvel.  Some  rooms  are  made  to  hold  ten,  and  many  to 
hold  six  or  seven.  .  .  . 

"  A  home  partakes  of  the  life  of  the  dwellers  in  it.  They 
mould  and  incorporate  it  with  their  being,  and  it  helps  to 
mould  and  fashion  them.  The  123,000  owners  of  an  un- 
divided and  indivisible  quarter  of  a  hovel  in  Finsbury,  and 
the  other  hundreds  of  thousands  in  like  case  elsewhere  in 
the  town,  are  curtailed  of  the  essential  parts  of  the  rights 
of  humanity  by  the  miserable  accident  that  their  locality 
refuses  them  reasonable  standing  room.  Family  life  is 
an  impossibility  for  a  whole  family  collected  in  the  single 
room  12  to  15  feet  by  6  to  10.  In  a  multitude  of  instances 
those  tenanting  a  single  room  are  several  families,  not  one. 
They  have  to  distribute  the  floor  by  square  inches,  and 
grow  up  with  less  regard  to  decency  than  a  cat  or  a  dog." 

And  in  another  letter  written  a  few  days  later,  Mr. 
Marchant  Williams  added  : — 

"It  was  only  the  other  day  that  I  discovered  in  one 
of  these  streets  (near  Fitzroy  Square)  a  house  containing 
nine  rooms,  each  of  which  accommodates  on  an  average 
eight  persons  ! 

"...  The  rents  in  the  most  crowded  parts  of  my  district 
amount  as  a  rule  to  about  a  third  or  fourth  of  the  maximum 
wages  earned  by  the  tenants." 

He  mentions  a  case,  a  riveter  : — 

"  He  had  recently  abandoned  the  room  in  which  he,  his 
wife,  and  six  children  had  lived  for  two  years." 

"  I  have  more  than  once  when  going  my  rounds  been 
accosted  by  a  landlord  in  a  state  of  abject  terror,  lest  I 
might  be  arranging  to  rob  him  of  some  of  his  victims.  The 
landlord's  defence  invariably  is  that  he  is  obliged  to  levy 
high  rents  because  the  tenants  frequently  run  away  by 
night  and  leave  no  trace  behind  them  of  their  where- 
abouts." 

More  and  more  did  the  feeling  grow  that  something  must 
be  done  to  ameliorate  the  conditions  under  which  the 
working   classes   and  poorer  people   were   living,   and   on 


OF  LONDON  317 

the  22nd  of  February,  the  Marquess  of  Salisbury,  in  the 
House  of  Lords,  moved  in  an  Address  to  Her  Majesty 
for  the  appointment  of  a  Eoyal  Commission  to  inquire  into 
the  housing  of  the  working  classes.* 

"  The  attention  of  persons  of  every  class,  of  every  creed, 
and  school  of  politics,  has  been  turned  to  this  question," 
he  said. 

H.K.H.  the  Prince  of  Wales  said  : — 

"  I  feel  convinced  that  your  lordships,  in  common  V7ith 
all  classes  of  Her  Majesty's  subjects,  will  be  gratified  to 
learn  that  the  noble  Marquess  has  asked  for  a  searching 
inquiry  into  this  gxeat  and  momentous  question  with 
regard  to  the  housing  and  the  amelioration  of  the  dwellings 
of  the  poor  and  of  the  working  classes,  and  that  Her 
Majesty's  Government  have  decided  to  issue  a  Eoyal  Com- 
mission for  that  purpose. 

"  As  your  Lordships  know  I  take  the  keenest  and  liveliest 
interest  in  this  question. 

"  I  can  assure  you,  my  Lords,  that  I  am  deeply  flattered 
at  having  been  appointed  a  member  of  this  Eoyal  Com- 
mission." 

The  Government  accepted  the  motion,  and  a  Eoyal 
Commission  was  forthwith  appointed  and  immediately 
began  its  work. 

While  the  great  question  of  housing  and  over- 
crowding was  under  discussion  and  was  being  investi- 
gated, and  efforts  being  made  to  deal  with  it,  various 
other  matters  forming  part  of  the  general  sanitary 
evolution  of  London  were  attracting  attention,  or  gradually 
developing. 

In  October,  1882,  the  limits  of  the  Port  of  London  were 
extended  seawards,  and  in  the  following  year  the  powers 
of  the  Port  Sanitary  Authority  were  extended.  +  Most 
of  the  powers  of  an  Urban  Sanitary  Authority  under  the 
Public  Health  Act  of  1875  were  conferred  upon  it,  and 
the  Medical  Of&cer  of   Health  reported  that  he   believed 

*  Hansard,  1884,  vol.  cclxxxiv. 

f  By  the  Diseases  Prevention  (Metropolis)  Act,  1883,  46  and  47  Vic. 
cap.  35. 


318       THE   SANITARY  EVOLUTION 

the  legal  powers  of  the  Authority  would  be  found  "  amply- 
sufficient  for  the  sanitary  control  and  supervision  of 
the  Port." 

The  Authority  extended  its  attention  now  to  the  in- 
spection of  imported  meat.  It  was  a  matter  of  the  first 
importance  to  watch  carefully  the  food  supply  of  the  people. 
The  trade  of  frozen  meat  had  been  rapidly  growing,  and 
from  time  to  time  large  quantities  arrived  in  unsound 
condition,  which  it  was  most  necessary  should  be  prevented 
going  on  to  the  market. 

In  connection  with  another  very  important  article  of  food 
— namely,  milk— action  was  also  taken. 

The  effect  of  the  order  made  in  1879  by  the  Privy 
Council,  as  to  dairies,  cowsheds,  and  milkshops,  had  been 
very  beneficial,  and  a  marked  change  for  the  better  in  the 
conditions  under  which  the  milk  trade  was  conducted  was 
the  result.  That  Order  was  revoked  in  1885  by  the  Privy 
Council,  and  a  new  one  passed  extending  the  powers  of  local 
authorities  in  the  matter,  and  prescribing  further  pre- 
cautions to  secure  the  sanitary  condition  of  all  dairies  and 
cowsheds,  and  for  the  protection  of  milk  against  infection 
or  contamination. 

Another  beneficial  sanitary  improvement  was  effected 
in  1883,  by  the  extension  of  the  benefits  of  the  infectious 
hospitals  of  the  Metropolitan  Asylums  Board. 

The  Eoyal  Commission  on  Fever  and  Smallpox  Hospitals, 
in  1882,  stated  that  in  their  opinion  it  was  of  paramount 
importance  that  the  hospitals  of  the  Metropolitan  Asylums 
Board,  to  which  so  many  classes  of  persons  might  become 
liable  to  be  removed,  should  be  made  as  little  unattractive 
as  the  nature  of  the  case  admitted,  and  they  considered 
that  the  pauper  character  which  attached  to  the  hospitals 
of  the  Board,  and  which  rendered  them  repulsive  to  all  but 
the  indigent,  would  disappear  if  the  distinction  between 
paupers  and  non-paupers  were  abolished. 

This  suggestion  was  partially  given  effect  to  by  the 
Diseases  Prevention  (Metropolis)  Act  of  1888,  which  en- 
acted that,  subject  to  certain  arrangements,  the  admission 
of  any  person  suffering  from  infectious  disease  into  any 


OF  LONDON  319 

hospital  provided  by  the  Metropolitan  Asylums  Board,  or 
the  maintenance  of  any  such  person  therein,  should  not 
be  considered  to  be  parochial  relief. 

The  plan  was  only  partly  successful,  but  as  years  went 
on  the  hospitals  were  increasingly  used  by  persons  other 
than  those  of  the  legally  recognised  pauper  class. 

In  the  years  1884  and  1885  the  hospitals  demonstrated 
their  great  utility.  There  was  a  severe  epidemic  of  small- 
pox. From  its  outbreak  in  1884,  to  its  subsidence  in  the 
autumn  of  1885,  no  less  a  number  than  12,425  patients 
passed  through  the  hospitals,  hospital  ships,  and  camps 
of  the  Metropolitan  Asylums  Board,  and  the  arrangements 
for  the  removal  to  hospital  of  cases  of  infectious  disease, 
from  the  whole  of  the  metropolis,  worked  smoothly  and 
satisfactorily. 

The  gain  to  the  community  in  thus  removing  infectious 
cases  from  its  midst  was  immeasurable.* 

In  1885  the  Eeport  of  the  Eoyal  Commission  which  had 
been  inquiring  into  the  Housing  of  the  Working  Classes 
was  published.  It  presented  to  the  general  public  a  mass  of 
facts  of  which  previously  they  had  taken  but  little  heed, 
and  the  vast  importance  of  which  they  had  utterly  failed 
to  realise ;  and  it  brought  into  the  forefront  of  social 
questions  the  vital  question  of  the  public  health,  and 
the  imperative  necessity  of  remedying  evils  which  were 
eating  into  the  very  vitals  of  the  community. 

The  Eoyal  Commissioners  depicted  the  widely  prevalent 
and  dreadful  overcrowding  which  existed,  and  which  in 
certain  localities  was  becoming  more  serious  than  ever, 
and  they  gave  numerous  instances  of  it.  They  described 
the  fearsome  condition  of  tenement-houses,  and  of  the 
people  living  therein — the  inadequacy  of  the  water  supply 
— the  defective  sanitary  accommodation  in  houses — the 
lack  of  air  space — the  absence  of  ventilation — the  use  of 
cellars  and  underground  rooms  as  dwelling-places — the 
limitless  filth. 

And  they  pointed  out  the  dreadful  results  of  this  condi- 
tion of  things — physical,  moral,  and  material — the  preva- 
*  The  total  net  expenditure  was  ^6401,000  in  1885. 


320       THE   SANITARY   EVOLUTION 

lence  of  disease,  the  heavy  death-rate,  the  destruction 
of  bodily  health,  the  dreadful  immorality  resulting  from 
overcrowding,  the  degradation  to  which  masses  were 
doomed,  the  incitement  to  drink,  and  depravity,  and  crime. 
They  declared  that : — 

"  Even  statistics  of  actual  disease  consequent  on  over- 
crowding would  not  convey  the  whole  truth  as  to  the  loss 
of  health  caused  by  it  to  the  labouring  classes.  .  .  . 

"  Nothing  stronger  could  be  said  in  describing  the  effect 
of  overcrowding  than  that  it  is  even  more  destructive  to 
general  health  than  conducive  to  the  spread  of  epidemic 
and  contagious  diseases." 

And  they  pointed  out  that  there  was  much  legislation 
designed  to  meet  these  evils,  yet  that  the  existing  laws  were 
not  put  in  force,  some  of  them  having  remained  a  dead 
letter  from  the  date  when  they  first  found  place  in  the 
statute  book. 

And  they  investigated  the  causes  of  many  of  these  things 
— and  they  assigned  the  blame  for  some  of  them — and  they 
passed  in  review  the  conduct  of  the  local  governing 
authorities — and  they  recapitulated  the  existing  laws  upon 
these  various  matters,  and  suggested  certain  alterations,  and 
made  various  valuable  recommendations. 

There  was,  in  fact,  placed  on  record  a  calm,  unim- 
passioned,  and  unexaggerated  statement  of  the  evils  which 
masses  of  the  population  of  the  great  capital  were  enduring 
in  the  last  quarter  of  the  highly  civilised  and  enlightened 
nineteenth  century. 

It  was  a  thorough  confirmation  of  all  the  reports  of  the 
Medical  Officers  of  Health,  and  of  the  facts  set  out,  and 
pressed  by  them,  year  after  year,  upon  the  attention  of  the 
Vestries  and  District  Boards,  and  which  had  so  persistently 
been  ignored  by  so  many  of  those  authorities. 

The  Commissioners  classified  the — 

"  Unquestioned  causes  which  produced  the  overcrowding 
and  the  generally  lamentable  condition  of  the  homes  of  the 
labouring  classes." 

The  first  was — 

"  The  poverty  of  the  inhabitants  of  the  poorest  quarters, 


OF  LONDON  321 

or  in  other  words  the  relation  borne   by  the  wages   they 
received  to  the  rent  they  had  to  pay." 

The  next  was  the  demolition,  for  various  reasons,  of 
houses  inhabited  by  the  working  classes  and  poorer  people, 
and  the  consequent  displacement  of  the  people. 

The  third  was  the  relation  between  the  owners  of 
property  upon  which  the  dwellings  of  the  poor  stood,  and 
the  tenants  of  those  dwellings. 

"  The  other  great  remaining  cause  of  the  evil  was  the 
remissness  of  local  authorities." 

From  their  very  origin,  these  "  authorities "  were  un- 
satisfactory instruments  for  the  performance  of  the  public 
duties. 

**  But  little  interest  was,  as  a  rule,  taken  in  the  election 
of  vestrymen  by  the  inhabitants,"  instances  having  been 
known  of  vestrymen  in  populous  parishes  being  returned 
by  two  votes,  on  a  show  of  hands. 

Elsewhere  it  is  reported  they  elected  each  other. 

The  Commissioners  referred  to  the  "supineness"  of 
many  of  these  metropolitan  local  authorities  in  sanitary 
matters,  and  to  the  "  laxity  of  administration  of  some 
of  them."  And  still  worse,  to  the  self-interested  action 
of  vestrymen. 

Thus  on  the  Vestry  of  Clerkenwell,  they  said,  were — 

**  Thirteen  or  fourteen  persons  who  are  interested  in  bad 
or  doubtful  property,  including  several  '  middlemen ' ;  and 
ten  publicans  who,  with  the  exception  of  one  or  two,  had 
the  reputation  of  working  with  the  party  who  trade  in 
insanitary  property ;  and  accordingly  this  party  commands 
a  working  majority  on  the  Vestry." 

"  It  is  not  surprising  to  find  that  the  Sanitary  Inspectors 
whose  tenure  of  office  and  salary  is  subject  to  such  a  body 
should  show  indisposition  to  activity." 

"The  state  of  the  homes  of  the  working  classes  in 
Clerkenwell,  the  overcrowding,  and  other  evils,  which 
act  and  re-act  on  one  another,  must  be  attributed  in  a 
large  measure  to  the  default  of  the  responsible  local 
authority." 

"Clerkenwell  does  not  stand  alone:   from  various  parts 

22 


322       THE   SANITARY   EVOLUTION 

of  London  the  same  complaints  are  heard  of  insanitary 
property  being  owned  by  members  of  the  Vestries  and 
District  Boards,  and  of  sanitary  inspection  being  ineffi- 
ciently done,  because  many  of  the  persons  whose  duty  it 
is  to  see  that  a  better  state  of  things  should  exist,  are 
those  who  are  interested  in  keeping  things  as  they  are." 

And  in  another  part  of  their  report  they  wrote  : — 

"It  is  evident  that  the  remedies  which  legislation  has 
provided  for  sanitary  evils  have  been  imperfectly  applied  in 
the  metropolis,  and  that  this  failure  has  been  due  to 
negligence  in  many  cases  of  the  existing  local  authorities." 

The  part  of  the  evidence  which  was  of  greatest  value 
and  interest  was  that  which  laid  bare  the  responsibility 
for  the  dreadful  conditions  under  which  such  masses  of 
the  people  lived. 

Apart  from  the  measure  of  responsibility  which  fell  on 
Parliament  itself,  and  it  was  no  light  one,  it  is  clear  that 
those  conditions  were  due  (1)  in  part  to  the  various  classes  of 
"  owners,"  (2)  in  part  to  the  people  themselves,  and  (3) 
in  part  to  the  local  authorities. 

As  regarded  owners,  there  were  first  the  ground  landlords, 
who  themselves,  or  whose  predecessors  had  leased  their 
land  for  building  purposes,  or  with  houses  thereon  to  a 
tenant. 

It  would  appear  clear  that  these  ground  landlords  or 
freeholders,  or  lessors,  had  power  to  enforce  against  the 
person  who  held  directly  from  them  the  repairing  clauses 
of  leases.  But  the  existing  condition  of  things  showed  that 
they  did  not  do  so. 

One  of  the  witnesses,  giving  evidence  about  a  particular 
property,  said : — 

"  By  the  terms  of  even  the  old  leases  the  tenant  was 
supposed  to  keep  the  place  in  proper  repair.  .  .  .  The 
property  has  gradually  deteriorated  in  consequence  of 
neglect." 

And  Lord  Sahsbury,  who  asked  : — 

"  I  suppose  it  is  practically  impossible  for  the  ground 
landlord  to  see  that  the  conditions  are  kept?" 

"Was  told  in  reply  : — 


OF   LONDON  323 

"  The  only  way  in  which  it  is  possible  for  him  to  do  that 
is  to  keep  a  very  active  supervision  over  his  property. 

"  If  that  was  done  by  ground  landlords,  and  had  always 
been  done  by  them,  you  would  have  personal  supervision 
carried  out  by  a  sufficient  number  of  people  to  ensure  the 
conditions  being  kept." 

Any  idea  of  property  having  its  duties  as  well  as  its  rights 
appears  to  have  been  non-existent. 

Next  to  the  landowner  was  the  numerous  and  varied 
class  of  house  "  owners,"  from  the  man  who  leased  the 
land  from  the  landlord  and  built  the  house,  or  who  had 
leased  the  house  and  had  sub-leased  it  to  some  one  else. 
And  often  there  were  sub-lessees,  until  in  some  cases  there 
was  a  chain  of  persons  holding  different  interests  in  the 
same  house. 

And  there  was  the  class  of  persons  who  take  a  house 
and  break  it  up  into  tenement-rooms,  and  who  were  known 
as  "house-knackers,"  or  house  jobbers,  or  house  farmers, 
or  as  "middlemen,"  these  last  being  defined  as  any  one 
who  stands  between  the  freeholder  and  the  one  who 
occupies. 

Some  interesting  descriptions  of  some  of  these  "middle- 
men "  were  given. 

One  of  the  largest  in  Clerkenwell  was  a  Mr.  Decimus 
Ball,  and  there  was  also  a  Mr.  Eoss — both  of  whom  were 
on  the  Vestry. 

The  witness  stated  that  these  men  had  neglected  the 
houses,  and  in  many  cases  were  very  extortionate  in  their 
demands  against  the  occupants. 

Mr.  Ball  had  many  houses  which  were  inhabited  by 
families  in  single  rooms,  but  which  up  to  a  short  time 
previously  were  inhabited  by  whole  families  to  a  house. 

Mr.  Ball's  profit  is  "perfectly  enormous  if  he  does  not 
do  any  repairs."  And  he  made  very  few ;  and  if  the  rent 
were  not  paid  on  the  Monday  morning,  he  threatened  to 
raise  it. 

Probably  the  most  notorious  "middleman"  was  a  certain 
Mr.  FHght. 

"  He    must    have    been    the    owner   of    thousands    and 


324       THE   SANITARY   EVOLUTION 

thousands  of  houses  in  the  metropolis."  (18,000,  it  was 
said.) 

"  He  owned  property  in  every  part  of  London,  and  the 
squalid  nature  of  that  property,  the  wretched  condition  in 
which  it  has  been  kept,  the  avoidance  of  all  decent  rules  by 
which  habitations  are  governed,  was  something  very  fearful." 

"  Middlemen,"  it  was  stated,  sometimes  appeared  to  be 
making  150  per  cent,  per  annum,  but  they  assert  that  repairs 
have  to  come  out  of  that.  Eepairs,  however,  were  only 
executed  once  in  three  or  four  years,  and  in  the  others  they 
get  their  150  per  cent. 

"  If  the  house-farmers  do  no  repairs  for  years  the  profits 
are  large.  .  .  .  They  collect  their  rents  very  sharply. 

"  The  middleman  makes  the  tenant  pay  an  excessive  rent 
because  he  insists  upon  making  an  excessive  profit." 

The  great  ^work  which  the  Commission  did  was  in  the 
enlightenment  of  the  public,  and  the  material  they  afforded 
for  the  formation  of  public  opinion  in  the  right  direction. 
Subsequent  experience  showed  that  the  recommendations 
made — excellent  and  helpful  as  so  many  of  them  were 
— did  not  by  a  long  way  cut  deep  enough  to  extirpate 
the  more  serious  evils. 

"It  is  evident,"  wrote  the  Commissioners,  "  that  the 
35th  Section  of  the  Sanitary  Act  of  1866  (dealing  with 
tenement-houses)  which  contains  a  remedy  for  some  of 
the  evils  which  have  been  described  is  likely  to  remain 
a  dead  letter  in  many  districts  of  the  metropolis  until  some 
improved  means  be  devised  for  putting  it  into  action," 
They  recommended  that  the  local  authorities  who  had 
not  already  made  and  enforced  bye-laws  under  the  section 
"  should  proceed  to  do  so," 

But  no  compulsion  was  suggested  to  make  them  do  so, 
or  for  the  only  effective  alternative,  the  provision  of  other 
machinery  to  act  in  their  default,  and  so  the  local  authori- 
ties were  in  this  matter  allowed  to  remain  in  their  position 
of  complete  independence  and  to  continue  their  policy  of 
inactivity — if  not  obstruction. 

As  to  inspection,  and  the  inadequacy  of  a  sanitary  staff, 
much  evidence  had  been  given,  but,  they  remarked : — 


OF  LONDON  325 

"It  is  evident  that  where  work  is  performed  according 
to  the  custom  of  certain  districts  of  the  metropoHs  it  really 
does  not  matter  whether  the  staff  of  inspectors  be  large  or 
small." 

They  summed  up  their  general  view  in  the  following 
passage : — 

"  Without  entering  upon  questions  of  policy  of  far  wider 
application  than  the  more  immediate  'subject-matter  of 
the  present  inquiry, "  Your  Majesty's  Commissioners  are 
clearly  of  opinion  that  there  has  been  failure  in  administra- 
tion rather  than  in  legislation,  although  the  latter  is  no 
doubt  capable  of  improvement.  What  at  the  present  time 
is  specially  required  is  some  motive  power,  and  probably 
there  can  be  no  stronger  motive  power  than  public  opinion." 

And  with  that  view  they  recommended  that  inquiries 
should  be  held  as  to  the  immediate  sanitary  requirements 
of  different  districts,  and  the  reports  be  presented  to 
Parliament. 

Public  opinion,  however,  is  hard  to  move,  and  usually 
slow  in  moving ;  and  when  it  has  at  last  decided  on  definite 
action  Parliament  is  slow  in  giving  effect  to  the  decision, 
and,  when  Parliament  at  last  acts,  the  legislation  itself 
is  frequently  defective.  And  so  the  outlook  was  rather 
hopeless. 

Various  other  more  concrete  amendments  were,  however, 
suggested  in  the  various  Housing  Acts  to  render  them  more 
effective  for  their  purpose. 

And,  as  a  result,  in  the  session  of  Parliament  of  1885 
a  Bill  was  introduced  dealing  with  the  "Housing  of  the 
Working  Classess." 

Lord  Salisbury,  in  moving  the  second  reading,  said  *  : — 

The  Bill  he  introduced  was  to  a  certain  extent  "  a 
compromise."  "  No  one  need  expect  to  find  that  it  contains 
any  magic  formula  which  will  cure  all  the  evils  of 
which  this  House  and  the  public  have  heard  a  great 
deal,  and  there  is  nothing  startling,  sensational  or  extreme 
in  its  provisions.  We  are  hoping  to  cure  these  evils  by 
slow  and  gradual  steps,  by  the  application  of  remedies 
*  Hansard,  vol,  ccxxix.  p.  889. 


326       THE   SANITARY  EVOLUTION 

apparently  not  far-reaching  in  their  character,  but  still 
judiciously  directed  to  the  precise  difficulties  which  arose 
in  each  department  of  our  inquiry." 

The  Bill  duly  passed  (48  &  49  Vic.  cap.  72). 

Most  of  the  reforms  embodied  in  it  were  of  a  trifling 
character  and  such  as  could  have  only  the  most  limited 
and  gradual  effect. 

This  Act  extended  generally  the  operation  of  the  Labour- 
ing Classes  Lodging  Houses  Acts  of  1851  and  1867,  and 
substituted  the  Metropolitan  Board  of  "Works  for  the 
Vestries  and  District  Boards  as  the  authority  under  the  Act. 

A  really  useful  plan  was  authorised  by  it,  namely,  the 
sale,  at  a  fair  market  price,  to  the  Metropolitan  Board 
of  certain  prison  sites  in  London  for  housing  purposes. 
And  one  other  good  thing  done  was  depriving  the  owner 
of  insanitary  premises,  which  had  been  pulled  down  by 
order  of  the  local  authority,  of  the  power  to  require  the 
local  authority  to  purchase  such  premises. 

But  merely  again  to  declare — 

"  That  it  shall  be  the  duty  of  every  local  authority  en- 
trusted with  the  laws  relating  to  public  health  and  local 
government  to  put  in  force  the  powers  with  which  they 
are  invested  so  as  to  secure  the  proper  sanitary  condition 
of  all  premises  within  the  area  under  their  control " — 
was  futile,  considering  that  the  authorities  in  question 
had  steadily  ignored  the  same  direction,  made  nineteen 
years  previously,  in  the  Act  of  1866. 

Lord  Salisbury  wound  up  his  speech  with  the  following 
abnegation  of  Parliamentary  power  : — 

"  We  must  not  imagine  that  it  is  anything  we  can  do 
in  this  House,  or  in  the  House  of  Commons,  that  will 
remove  all  these  evils.  It  must  be  done  by  that  stirring 
up  of  public  opinion  which  these  investigations  cause ; 
it  is  to  this  that  we  must  look  for  any  real  reform,  it  must 
be  from  the  people  themselves,  from  the  owners,  builders, 
and  occupiers,  when  their  attention  is  drawn  to  the 
enormous  evils  which  past  negligence  has  caused,  it  is 
from  them  that  the  cure  of  the  sanitary  evils  which  have 
so  largely  increased  the  death-rate  must  come," 


OF   LONDON  327 

Considering,  however,  the  accumulated  mass  of  evidence 
which  had  shown  beyond  all  question  that  it  was  the 
owners  and  builders  who  were  mainly  responsible  for  those 
"  enormous  evils,"  and  who  were  still  hard  at  work  adding 
to  them  and  perpetuating  them,  it  was  rather  hopeless 
to  expect  "the  cure  of  the  sanitary  evils"  to  come  from 
that  quarter. 

Unfortunately  two  general  elections,  and  the  heated 
discussion  of  great  political  questions,  threw  even  these 
great  health  questions  into  the  background,  and  not  so 
much  immediate  benefit  as  was  to  be  hoped  followed  the 
inquiry  of  the  Eoyal  Commissioners. 

It  is  an  awful  handicap  to  the  welfare  of  a  community, 
and  of  a  nation,  when  those  who  should  take  a  principal 
share  in  the  duty  of  raising  the  physical,  social,  and 
moral  condition  of  the  people  over  whom  they  can  exercise 
influence,  and  who  are  more  or  less  under  their  control, 
not  alone  stand  idly  aside,  but  absolutely  exploit  the 
misery  and  helplessness  and  ignorance  of  masses  of  the 
people. 

The  Imperial  Government  may  make  most  excellent 
laws,  but  the  physical  and  sanitary  welfare  of  the  people 
cannot  be  secured  by  a  local  governing  authority  alone, 
nor  their  moral  and  religious  welfare  by  the  Churches  alone 

There  is  a  great  sphere  of  life  where  those  who  stand 
in  the  relation  of  land-owners  or  house-owners  to  tenants 
could  exercise  an  enormous  influence  for  good,  and  where 
nobody  else  could  exercise  it  so  effectually  or  so  easily. 

But  the  disaster  has  been  that  in  the  great  metropolis — 
the  greatest  of  all  cities — a  vast  proportion  of  those  who 
ought  to  have  been  active  in  using  this  influence,  have 
never  made  the  slightest  effort  to  use  it,  whilst  others 
have  used  their  position,  and  the  dependence  of  the  people 
upon  them,  solely  to  wring  from  them  tho  last  farthing 
that  could  be  extracted. 

And  these  were  the  men  who  made  the  loudest  protests 
and  outcry  against  legislation  and  against  administration 
which  was  to  make  them  do  that  which  the  vital  interests 
of  the  community  and  of  the  State  required  to  be  done. 


328       THE   SANITARY  EVOLUTION 

The  root  of  the  evil  connected  with  the  housing  of 
the  people  in  London  lay  with  the  disregard  of  "owners  " 
for  the  condition  of  their  tenants. 

Many  "owners"  appeared  to  be  under  the  impression 
that  their  investment  in  house  property  was  to  be  as  free 
from  trouble  or  labour  as  money  invested  in  the  national 
funds  is ;  and  so  long  as  they  got  the  rent  they  expected, 
they  did  not  trouble  themselves  about  the  state  of  the 
houses  or  of  the  people  living  therein.  They  were  loth 
to  spend  money  on  them,  as  that  curtailed  their  income, 
and  the  argument  was  constantly  used  that  it  was  useless 
spending  money  to  put  the  property  in  order,  when 
anything  they  did  to  it  would  be  promptly  destroyed. 
And  they  cared  not  who  were  their  tenants  so  long  as  a 
high  rent  was  obtainable  from  them. 

Some  declared  that  the  people  were  so  sunken,  so 
degraded,  so  filthy,  and  depraved,  and  destructive,  that 
nothing  they  could  do  could  secure  their  property  being 
kept  in  a  sanitary  or  decent  condition. 

Doubtless  in  many  districts  and  many  cases  the  conduct 
of  the  tenants  was  as  bad  as  bad  could  be.  As  one  of  the 
Medical  Officers  of  Health  wrote  in  1883  : — 

"  It  must  be  borne  in  mind  that  many  of  the  occupants 
of  tenement  property  are  careless  and  filthy  in  their  habits ; 
and  in  addition  are  very  destructive ;  fittings  put  up  one 
day  are  pulled  dovra.  and  destroyed  the  next ;  ash-bin  covers, 
closet  doors,  and  even  flooring  boards,  share  the  same  fate." 

And  many  were  the  "  owners "  of  various  degree  who 
endeavoured  to  justify  their  neglect  on  this  ground. 

Were  such  an  argument  admitted,  the  owner  could  claim 
to  be  exonerated  from  the  duty  of  keeping  his  property 
in  proper  order,  and  the  evil  conditions  and  consequences 
resulting  from  his  neglect  would  go  on  increasing  indefi- 
nitely, until  a  state  of  things  destructive  to  the  community 
was  ultimately  reached. 

Viewed  broadly,  and  impartially,  there  was  much  truth 
as  regarded  the  misconduct  and  uncleanliness  of  great 
numbers  of  tenants,  but  the  central  fact  was  that  the 
"owner"  was  the  person  mainly  interested  in,  and  bene- 


OF   LONDON  329 

fited  by  possession  of  the  property,  and  therefore  primarily 
responsible  for  maintaining  it  in  a  condition  which  should 
not  endanger  the  health  of  the  community. 

If,  through  the  neglect  and  indifference  of  his  predecessors, 
the  property  had  fallen  into  a  bad  state,  the  consequences 
equitably  fell  upon  him,  just  as  the  consequences  of  any 
other  bad  investment  by  his  predecessor  would  have  done. 
He  had  inherited  something  which  was  not  worth  as  much 
as  he  anticipated — that  was  all ;  but  the  consequences  must 
not  be  shifted  on  to  the  community,  nor  must  his  tenants 
be  made  the  victims. 

And  if  he  allowed  his  property  to  become  a  danger  to 
his  tenants,  and  through  them  to  the  community  at  large, 
the  community  had  an  absolute  right  to  protect  itself  by 
insisting  that  he  should  be  prevented  from  so  doing. 

The  only  way  in  which,  in  the  interests  of  the  public, 
abuses  can  be  prevented  is  by  holding  the  person  responsible 
for  them  who  has  the  power  of  preventing  them.  And 
that  was  just  what  in  this  case  the  "  owners "  did  not 
like. 

Building  constituted  an  important  part  of  the  housing 
problem.  The  Medical  Officer  of  Health  for  Lambeth, 
in  his  report  for  1887,  gave  an  interesting  account  of  the 
process  of  building  in  London  which  shows  how  even  the 
amended  Building  Acts  had  failed  to  secure  those  conditions 
of  air  and  space  which  are  essential  for  health. 

"  In  proximity  to  the  centres  of  business  every  available 
plot  of  garden  or  recreation  ground  has  been  converted 
into  building  sites.  Houses  constructed  from  materials 
of  the  poorest  quality  and  by  workmen  employed  only  for 
the  cheapness  of  their  labour,  have  been  hurried  into 
occupation. 

"  The  system  of  close  building,  at  first  confined  in  its 
application  to  the  consolidation  of  the  inner  zone,  has 
been  adopted  in  the  outer,  and  with  the  demand  for 
shelter,  which  increases  in  a  progressive  ratio  with  the 
growth  of  the  population,  the  once  open  suburbs  must 
ere  long  become  indistinguishable  in  the  monotony  of  house 
row  and  pavement. 


330       THE   SANITARY  EVOLUTION 

"The  art  of  close  building  appears  a  progressive  one. 
In  its  infancy,  twenty  years  ago,  the  art  has  now  arrived  at 
a  stage  nearly  approaching  perfection.  In  the  earlier 
examples  the  space  allotted  to  garden  land  was  larger 
than  that  built  on.  Then  the  size  of  the  two  quantities 
reached  an  equality — then  the  covered  ground  becomes 
a  larger  quantity  than  the  uncovered  land,  until  the  final 
stage  of  development  is  attained  when  the  extreme  limit 
of  encroachment  permitted  by  the  Building  Act  is  reached, 
and  garden  land  is  represented  by  a  yard  100  superficial  feet 
in  area." 

Extraordinary  loopholes  in  the  sanitary  laws,  moreover, 
were  constantly  being  discovered  which  almost  neutralised 
the  original  enactment. 

Thus  the  Medical  Officer  of  Health  for  Camberwell 
remarked  in  his  report  for  1888  : — 

"  It  has  been  long  known  to  the  Sanitary  Committee 
that  there  has  never  been  any  efficent  supervision  of  the 
drainage  and  other  sanitary  arrangements  of  houses  in 
course  of  construction.  ...  It  is  true  that  every  builder 
has  been  required  before  constructing  his  private  drains 
and  connecting  them  with  the  public  sewers,  to  send  in 
a  plan  of  his  proposed  drainage  for  the  sanction  of  the 
Surveyor.  But  there  has  been  no  machinery  by  which 
builders  could  be  compelled  to  carry  out  their  private 
works  in  accordance  with  the  plans  submitted,  and  to 
ensure  that  the  details  of  their  works  had  been  carried 
out  in  a  workmanlike  or  efficient  manner.  The  inspections 
of  houses  even  recently  built  have  shown  that  sanitary 
nuisances  complained  of  have  been  largely  due  to  scanda- 
lous neglect  of  duty  on  the  part  of  those  concerned  in 
carrying  out  the  drainage  works,  and  that  in  most  cases 
the  plans  sent  in  have  not  accorded  with  the  arrangements 
finally  adopted." 

Various,  indeed,  were  matters  connected  with  the  public 
health  which  unexpectedly  came  cropping  up;  sometimes 
matters  thought  to  have  been  disposed  of  but  only  partly 
so,  sometimes,  wholly  new  origins  and  ramifications  of 
insanitation. 


OF  LONDON  331 

Thus  in  1886  the  Medical  Officer  of  Health  for  the  south 
part  of  Poplar  District  drew  special  attention  to  a  grievance 
long  previously  complained  of  and  for  many  years  endured. 

"A  greater  scandal  cannot  well  be  shown  in  matters 
vital  to  health  than  that  in  spite  of  abundant  evidence 
of  the  magnitude  of  the  evil,  thousands  and  tens  of 
thousands  of  families  living  in  houses,  the  rates  of  which 
are  payable  by  the  landlords,  may  at  any  moment,  without 
a  particle  of  fault  of  their  own,  be  suddenly  denied  one 
of  the  first  necessaries  of  life — water — through  the  neglect 
and  wilfulness  of  others." 

The  main  remedy  open  to  the  water  companies  to 
recover  rates  from  defaulting  non-resident  owners  of 
tenement-houses  was  the  simple  expedient  of  discontinuing 
the  supply  of  water.  This  course  was  open  to  a  double 
objection — first,  tenants  who  had  paid  their  rent  were 
deprived  of  that  for  which  they  had  constructively  paid ; 
and  secondly,  a  tenement-house  deprived  of  water  might 
speedily  become  a  focus  of  disease. 

"  That  disease  and  death  are  directly  traceable  to  this 
want,"  wrote  the  Medical  Officer  of  Health,  "  no  one  ac- 
quainted with  sanitary  work  in  London  can  doubt.  Take 
this  instance.  Water  cut  off,  drains  stopped,  opening 
up  of  ground  and  drains,  removal  of  filth  accumulations, 
horrid  stench,  diphtheria,  death. 

"In  Hanbury  Place — having  six  houses — there  was  no 
water  supply  for  twenty-six  days,  and  families  numbering 
each  seven,  nine,  two  of  six,  and  others  had  to  exist  in 
May,  1885,  with  choked  drains,  yard  flooded  with  sewage, 
and  no  water — and  all  because  of  non-payment  of  rates  by 
the  landlord." 

In  1887  Parliament  happily  dealt  with  this  evil,  and  by 
an  Act  passed  in  that  year — 

"  Water  companies  were  prohibited  from  cutting  off  the 
water  supply  from  any  dwelling-house  for  non-payment  of 
water  rate,  if  such  rate  were  payable  by  the  owner  and  not 
the  occupier  of  the  premises.  ..." 

In  the  middle  of  this  decade,  too,  anxiety  revived,  owing 
to  the  state  of  the  Thames,  a  matter  which  it  was  hoped 


332       THE   SANITARY   EVOLUTION 

had  been  finally  disposed  of.  The  discharge  of  sewage  at 
the  new  outfalls  make  the  river  in  those  parts  much  what  it 
had  previously  been  in  London. 

A  Royal  Commission  was  appointed  to  inquire  into  the 
subject.  They  reported  that  they  found  a  condition  of 
things  which  they  "  must  denounce  as  a  disgrace  to  the 
metropolis  and  to  civilisation."  They  said  that  in  1884 
"  the  sewage  water  from  the  outfalls  manifestly  reached 
London  Bridge." 

"At  Greenwich  Pier  the  water  was  very  black,  and  the 
smell  exceedingly  strong." 

"  At  Woolwich  the  river  for  its  whole  width  was  black, 
putrid,  sewage —  looking  as  if  unmixed  and  unalloyed.  The 
stench  was  intolerable." 

"We  are  of  opinion  that  it  is  neither  necessary  nor 
justifiable  to  discharge  the  sewage  of  the  metropolis  in  its 
crude  state  into  any  part  of  the  Thames." 

This  evil  was  surmounted  by  the  adoption  by  the 
Metropolitan  Board  of  Works  of  a  system  of  treatment  of 
the  crude  sewage.  Chemical  precipitation  was  effected  by 
adding  to  the  sewage  certain  proportions  of  lime  and 
protosulphate  of  iron,  and  allowing  it  to  remain  for  an 
hour  or  two  in  settling  tanks.  The  effluent  water  was 
let  flow  into  the  river,  and  the  sludge  was  carried  down  the 
river  in  barges  and  cast  into  the  sea. 

The  public  interest  evoked  by  the  inquiries  made  by  the 
Eoyal  Commissioners  on  Housing,  and  the  publication  of 
their  Report,  certainly  quickened  the  activity  of  many  of 
the  local  authorities. 

In  several  of  the  parishes  and  districts  the  Regulations 
under  the  Sanitary  Acts  of  1866  and  1874  were  being  more 
readily  adopted,  and  being  put  into  force  on  a  slightly 
more  extended  scale  ;  and  in  every  case  it  was  reported  that 
the  results  had  been  satisfactory,  a  great  improvement 
taking  place  in  the  houses  which  were  registered. 

A  report  of  the  Inspector  of  such  houses,  for  Bermondsey, 
describes  this  well : — 

"  108  were  placed  on  Register  by  Vestry.  The  majority 
of  these  houses  are  situated  in  the  lowest  and  most  densely 


OF   LONDON  333 

populated  parts  of  the  parish.  They  are  occupied  by  the 
very  poor,  costermongers,  dock  and  waterside  labourers,  &c. 
They  contain  509  rooms,  occupied  by  386  families,  number- 
ing 1,434  persons.  285  rooms  were  overcrowded.  With 
three  exceptions  the  overcrowding  has  been  abated. 
Previous  to  registration  the  number  in  each  house  was  13, 
present  average  9." 

"The  sanitary  condition  of  the  said  houses  has  been 
greatly  improved.  Staircases,  &c.,  are  now  regularly  swept 
and  washed.  In  85  houses  the  walls  have  been  stripped 
and  whitewashed.  Many  of  the  walls  had  15  layers  of 
paper,  thus  hiding  filth  and  harbouring  vermin.  Ventila- 
tion in  them  is  also  improved.  Many  owners  rendered 
much  assistance." 

Several  inquiries  of  the  sort  suggested  by  the  Eoyal 
Commissioners  were  held  in  the  course  of  the  ensuing  years 
and  reports  presented  to  Parliament,  but  it  is  much  to  be 
doubted  whether  they  had  any  effect  in  so  inciting  public 
opinion  as  to  make  it  insist  on  the  recalcitrant  local 
authorities  carrjdng  the  laws  into  effect. 

Clerkenwell,  Mile-End-Old-Town,  Bethnal  Green,  and 
Kotherhithe,  were  inquired  into,  and  reported  on.  The  tale 
was  much  the  same  as  that  set  forth  time  after  time,  and 
year  after  year,  by  various  Medical  Officers  of  Health — want 
of  adequate  sanitary  supervision,  numerous  neglects  by  the 
Vestries,  especially  the  neglect  to  make,  or,  if  made,  to 
enforce  Regulations  under  the  Sanitary  Acts  of  1866 
and  1874. 

The  initiative  of  dealing  with  the  existing  condition  of 
things  rested  with  the  Vestries.  It  was  forcibly  pointed 
out  that  complaints  could  hardly  be  expected  either  from 
the  owners  of  insanitary  houses,  on  whom  the  cost  of  the 
improvements  would  fall,  or  from  tenants  who  are  too  often 
indifferent  to  considerations  of  health  and  cleanliness,  and 
who  in  any  case  would  fear  to  offend  their  landlords  by 
complaining. 

Eotherhithe  came  in  for  the  strongest  condemnation.  Of 
it  the  Commissioners  reported  : — 

"  It  is,  in  fact,  no  exaggeration  to  say  that  the  results  of 


334       THE   SANITARY  EVOLUTION 

lax  administration  abound  in  Kotherhithe,  and  especially  in 
houses  occupied  by  poor  persons." 

The  increase  of  the  sanitary  staff  was  recommended,  but 
the  obdurate  Vestry  resolved  not  to  increase  it. 

The  absolute  necessity  of  inspection  was  demonstrated 
every  day  of  the  year  to  every  Vestry  and  District  Board 
in  the  metropolis  by  the  results  of  such  exceedingly  limited 
inspection  as  was  carried  out. 

In  St.  Luke,  in  1890,  of  1,348  houses  inspected  296  were 
found  "  in  fair  sanitary  condition." 

In  Hackney,  in  1887,  6,213  were  inspected ;  3,620  of 
them  were  found  to  be  wanting  in  some  sanitary  require- 
ment, or  were  so  dirty  as  to  necessitate  orders  being  served 
for  whitewashing  and  cleaning.  In  one  street  111  houses 
were  inspected,  and  in  97  nuisances  were  found. 

In  St.  Marylebone,  in  1884,  2,136  orders  were  sent  out 
for  repairs  and  various  sanitary  improvements.  In  Ham- 
mersmith, 3,377  notices  to  abate  nuisances  were  served  in 
1886.  In  Westminster,  1,609  notices  served  for  sanitary 
defects. 

The  Medical  Officer  of  Health  for  St.  Saviour,  South wark, 
reported  (1890-1)  :— 

"  The  importance  of  house-to-house  inspection  may  be 
estimated  by  the  fact  that  of  491  houses  inspected,  it  was 
found  necessary  in  nearly  every  instance  to  serve  notice  for 
the  carrying  out  of  urgent  sanitary  requirements." 

In  Camberwell  there  were,  in  1889,  between  30,000  and 
40,000  houses  in  the  parish,  "  of  which  probably  one-half 
should  be  inspected  periodically." 

The  Medical  Officer  of  Health  of  Bethnal  Green  stated: — 

"  In  my  district  we  have  a  population  of  about  130,000, 
and  about  18,000  houses,  and  we  have  two  Inspectors. 
Of  course  there  should  be  periodical  inspection,  that  is  to 
say,  every  house  in  the  parish  should  be  visited  at  least  once 
a  year  by  a  Sanitary  Inspector,  but  that  with  the  present 
staff  would  be  utterly  impossible.  In  my  district  there  is  no 
house-to-house  visitation ;  we  simply  attend  to  complaints 
as  we  receive  them,  and  this  completely  fills  up  the  time  of 
the  two  Inspectors." 


OF  LONDON  335 

And  he  further  stated  *  : — 

"  In  my  district  the  Sanitary  Inspectors  are  not  under 
the  control  of  the  Medical  Officer  of  Health." 

It  is  of  course  manifest  that  if  houses  had  not  been 
inspected,  and  the  necessary  sanitary  improvements  en- 
forced, things  would  have  gone  on  rapidly  deteriorating,  and 
with  that  deterioration  would  have  come  all  those  causes 
of  disease  which  would  endanger  the  lives  of  the  occupants 
and  create  fresh  centres  for  spreading  disease  broadcast. 

It  might  have  been  thought  that  the  numerous  inquiries 
into  the  condition  of  the  working  classes  in  factories  and 
workshops  would  have  laid  bare  nearly  all  there  was  to 
lay  bare. 

A  report  to  the  Board  of  Trade  on  the  Sweating  System 
in  the  East  End  of  London,  by  J.  Burnett  in  1887,  rudely 
dispelled  such  an  idea,  and  opened  out  to  public  view  a  new 
vista  of  causes,  deleteriously  affecting  the  public  health,  a 
new  area  of  insanitation.  Though  the  evils  depicted  had 
become  acuter,  they  evidently  had  been  going  on  for 
years. 

"  The  system  may  be  defined  as  one  under  which  sub- 
contractors undertake  to  do  work  in  their  own  houses  or 
small  workshops,  and  employ  others  to  do  it,  making  a 
profit  for  themselves  by  the  difference  between  the  contract 
prices  and  the  wages  they  pay  their  assistants. 

"  The  mass  of  those  employed  under  the  sweating  system 
labour  in  workshops  where  much  fewer  than  20  are  engaged, 
or  in  the  houses  which  may  be  single  rooms  of  the  '  small 
sweaters.'  " 

After  referring  to  the  numerous  branches  of  the  tailoring 
trade,  he  said  : — 

"  Immense  numbers  of  people  of  both  sexes  and  all  ages 
have  rushed  into  the  cheap  tailoring  trade  as  the  readiest 
means  of  finding  employment.  The  result  has  been  an 
enormously  overcrowded  labour  market,  and  a  consequently 
fierce  competition  among  the  workers  themselves,  with  all 
the  attendant  evils  of  such  a  state  of  things.  .  .  .  Matters 
have  been  rendered  infinitely  worse  by  an  enormous  influx 
*  Lords'  Committee  on  Sweating,  P.P.  1890,  vol.  17. 


336       THE   SANITARY  EVOLUTION 

of  pauper  foreigners  from  other  European  nations.  The 
result  has  been  to  flood  the  labour  market  of  the  East  End 
of  London  with  cheap  labc>(|^  to  such  an  extent  as  to 
reduce  thousands  of  native  workers  to  the  verge  of  desti- 
tution. ..." 

"  There  are,  of  course,  in  addition  many  English  workers 
employed  in  the  same  trade  and  in  the  same  shops,  but 
their  number  is  gradually  being  reduced,  owing  to  the 
severity  of  a  competition  in  which  those  who  can  subsist  on 
least  are  sure  to  be  victorious. 

"  The  object  of  the  sweater  being  his  own  gain,  the 
inevitable  tendency  of  such  a  system  is  to  grind  the 
workers  down  to  the  lowest  possible  level.  .  .  . 

"  The  character  of  the  workshops,  or  places  used  as 
workshops,  varies  considerably.  The  smaller  sweaters  use 
part  of  their  dwelling  accommodation,  and  in  the  vast 
majority  of  cases  work  is  carried  on  under  conditions  in  the 
highest  degree  filthy  and  unsanitary." 

"  In  small  rooms,  not  more  than  nine  or  ten  feet  square, 
heated  by  a  coke  fire  for  the  pressors'  irons,  and  at  night 
lighted  by  flaring  gas  jets,  six,  eight,  ten,  or  even  a  dozen 
workers  may  be  crowded. 

"  The  conditions  of  the  Public  Health  Acts,  and  of  the 
Factory  and  Workshop  Eegulation  Acts,  are  utterly  dis- 
regarded, and  existing  systems  of  inspection  are  entirely 
inadequate  to  enforce  their  provisions  even  if  no  divided 
authority  tended  to  weaken  the  hands  of  the  Inspectors. 

"  Some  of  the  shops  are  hidden  in  garrets  and  back  rooms 
of  the  worst  kinds  of  East  End  tenements,  and  a  third  of 
them  cannot  be  known  to  the  Factory  Inspectors. 

"  It  is  in  regulating  the  hours  of  the  women  that  factory 
inspection  should  be  of  most  service,  but  how  can  two  or 
three  Inspectors  keep  in  check  the  multitude  of  sweating 
dens  of  East  London?  Basements,  garrets,  backyards, 
wash-houses,  and  all  sorts  of  unlocked  for  and  unsuspected 
places  are  the  abodes  of  the  sweater." 

Early  in  the  following  year  Lord  Dunraven,  in  the  House 
of  Lords,  moved  for  the  appointment  of  a  Select  Committee 
to  inquire  into  the  sweating  system. 


OF  LONDON  337 

"The  evils  which  existed  there  were  caused  by  natural 
laws  which  were  not  by  any  means  of  necessity  unwhole- 
some in  any  degree.  .  .  .  But  his  belief  was  that  though  the 
causes  were  perfectly  natural  in  themselves  they  had  been 
allowed  to  run  riot,  and  had  not  been  put  under  proper 
control,  and  had  thus  produced  the  present  terrible  state 
of  things.  .  .  . 

**  Large  workshops  were  the  exception.  In  the  *  dens  '  of 
the  sweaters  there  was  not  the  slightest  attempt  at  decency ; 
men  and  women  worked  together  for  many  consecutive 
hours,  penned  up  in  small  rooms  and  basements,  garrets, 
backyards,  wash-houses,  and  all  sorts  of  unlikely  places, 
were  the  abodes  of  the  sweaters." 

And  he  quoted  the  Chief  Inspector  of  Factories  and 
Workshops : — 

"  To  add  to  the  evils  of  overwork  pursued  by  these  people, 
we  must  note  the  overcrowded,  ill-ventilated,  and  excessively 
hot  state  of  the  workrooms  ;  ...  it  is  surprising  how  such 
people  can  live  under  such  conditions. 

"  .  .  .It  was,"  he   said,  "  a  ridiculous  and  scandalous 
thing  that   Parliament  should  pass  Factory  and  Sanitary 
Acts  regulating  the  hours  of  labour  of  women  and  children, 
and  that  those  Acts  should  be  grossly  violated." 
Lord  Sandhurst  said  : — 

**  It  might  appear  to  their  Lordships  almost  incredible 
that  within  three  or  four  miles  of  that  House  a  state  of 
things,  involving  so  much  human  misery,  could  possibly 
exist  as  was  to  be  found  at  the  East  End  of  London." 

The  Select  Committee  was  appointed.  The  results  of  its 
inquiries  are  stated  in  the  next  chapter. 

In  1888  the  local  government  of  London  underwent  a  most 
notable  change. 

In  the  early  part  of  1887  various  rumours  gained 
currency  as  to  questionable  dealings  in  connection  with 
the  lettings  of  land  owned  by  the  Metropolitan  Board. 
Certain  officials  of  the  Board  were  mentioned.  The  details 
do  not  fall  within  the  history  of  the  sanitary  evolution  of 
London,  except  so  far  as  they  affected  the  central  governing 
authority  of  London.     The  allegations  made  received  in- 

23 


338       THE   SANITARY  EVOLUTION 

creasing  confirmation,  and  early  in  1888  a  Royal  Commission 
was  appointed  to  inquire  into  and  thoroughly  sift  them,  and 
early  in  May  the  Commission  held  its  first  sitting,  the 
Metropolitan  Board  affording  every  facility  for  the  thorough 
investigation  of  the  matter. 

Before  that  time,  however  —  namely,  in  March  —  the 
Government  had  introduced  into  the  House  of  Commons  its 
proposals  as  regarded  the  local  government  of  England  and 
Wales  generally ;  and  the  opportunity  was  taken  to  deal 
with  the  great  problem  of  London  government  which  had 
so  long  vexed  and  perplexed  successive  governments,  and 
which  was  becoming  more  and  more  insistent  as  years  went 
on,  and  London  was  accordingly  included  in  the  general 
scheme. 

By  the  measure  now  introduced  London  was  to  be 
created — not  a  Corporation,  nor  a  Municipality,  but  a 
County — with  a  Council  as  the  governing  authority  of  the 
County. 

Mr.  Eitchie,  introducing  the  Bill  into  the  House  of 
Commons,  said  *  : — 

"  We  cannot  shut  our  eyes  to  the  fact  that  whereas  every 
other  borough  in  the   country  possesses   a  body   directly 
representing  the  ratepayers,  no  such  body  exists  in  London. 
"  There  is  no  one  elected  by,  or  responsible  to  the  rate- 
payers. 

"  We  propose  to  take  London,  as  defined  under  the  Metro- 
polis Management  Act,  out  of  the  counties  of  Middlesex, 
Surrey,  and  Kent,  and  we  propose  to  create  it  a  County  of 
London  by  itself,  with  a  Lord  Lieutenant,  a  Bench  of 
Magistrates,  and  a  County  Council  of  its  own. 

"  We  propose  that  the  Council  shall  be  directly  elected  by 
the  ratepayers,  as  in  all  other  counties  and  boroughs — that 
the  franchise  shall  be  the  same— and  that  it  shall  consist, 
as  in  all  other  cases,  of  elected  and  selected  members ;  th^ 
elected  members  sitting  for  three  years,  the  selected  foi: 
six  years  (one-half  of  their  number  retiring  every  three 
years). 

**  It  will  take  over  the  licensing  powers  and  all  the  duties 
■r-  Hansard,  p.  1663,  March  19,  1888. 


OF  LONDON  339 

of  the  Metropolitan  Board  of  Works,  which  will  cease  to 
exist." 

The  "  City  "  of  London  was  to  be  allowed  to  retain  its 
separate  existence  within  the  new  County,  together  with 
its  ancient  privileges  and  immunities  for  the  most  part 
unaltered  and  untouched. 

The  Bill  developed  into  an  Act,  which  created  a  new 
central  authority  for  London,  under  the  title  of  the  London 
County  Council. 

The  area  of  the  new  "  Administrative  County  "  of  London 
was  made  co-extensive  with  that  of  the  former  district  of 
the  Metropolitan  Board  of  Works. 

And  to  the  new  Authority  was  transferred  the  powers, 
duties,  and  liabilities  of  the  Metropolitan  Board  of  Works ; 
and  to  those  were  added  functions  much  wider  and  more 
extensive  than  those  of  that  Board. 

The  Act  also  conferred  upon  the  Council  the  power  of 
appointing  a  Medical  Officer  of  Health  for  the  County,  and 
additional  powers  of  making  bye-laws. 

It  did  not,  however,  materially  interfere  with  the 
Vestries  and  District  Boards,  nor  did  it  alter  their  rela- 
tion to  the  Central  Authority.  Practically  it  left  them 
untouched. 

The  Council  was  to  consist  of  137  members,  of  whom 
118  were  to  be  elected  triennally  by  direct  election  in  the 
various  metropolitan  constituencies,  and  19  to  be  elected  by 
the  Council  itself  as  Aldermen. 

Finally,  the  Act  set  a  limit  to  the  existence  of  the  Metro- 
politan Board  of  Works. 

While  the  Bill  was  going  through  Parliament  the  Eoyal 
Commission  had  been  pursuing  its  inquiry  into  the  allega- 
tions made  against  that  Board,  and  had  ascertained  that 
several  of  the  officials  had  been  carrying  on — 

"...  A  nefarious  course  of  proceeding  by  which  they 
had  been  able  to  obtain  for  themselves  large  sums  of  money 
out  of  dealings  with  the  Board's  land." 
And  that — 

"...  Two  of  the  members  of  the  Board  in  the  archi- 
tectural profession  had  availed  themselves  of  their  repre- 


340       THE    SANITARY   EVOLUTION 

sentative  position  to  make  personal  profit  out  of  some  of  the 
business  which  came  before  them." 

Under  the  growing  disfavour  with  which  public  authorities 
were  regarded  who  were  only  indirectly  elected,  and  so  not 
amenable  to  the  influence  or  control  of  the  electorate,  it  is 
improbable  that  the  existence  of  the  Metropolitan  Board  of 
Works  would  have  been  much  prolonged.  But  it  was  an 
unfortunate  ending  to  a  great  public  body  which  had  done 
really  great  service  to  London. 

Its  own  final  words  *  may  be  quoted  in  its  defence : — 

"It  has  been  a  source  of  pain  and  sorrow  to  the  Board 
that,  at  the  close  of  thirty-three  years'  administration  of  the 
local  affairs  of  London,  which  has  been  attended  with  at  least 
some  measure  of  success,  and  in  the  course  of  which  the 
Board  has  carried  out  some  of  the  greatest  works  of  public 
utility  of  which  any  city  can  boast,  its  good  name  has  during 
the  last  year  of  its  existence  been  sullied  by  iniquitous  pro- 
ceedings of  which,  though  carried  on  in  its  midst,  its 
members  as  a  body  were  entirely  without  knowledge.  It  is 
some  satisfaction  to  remember,  however,  that  a  body  of 
Commissioners,  who  in  a  judicial  spirit  made  the  most 
searching  inquiry  into  the  Board's  proceedings,  were  able, 
while  exposing  the  wrong-doings  which  were  revealed  to 
them,  and  justly  distributing  the  blame,  to  speak  of  the 
Board,  as  they  do  in  their  report,  in  the  following  terms : — 

"  '  It  has  had  a  multitude  of  duties  to  perform,  and  very 
great  works  have  been  constructed  by  it,  which  have  trans- 
formed the  face  of  some  of  the  most  important  thoroughfares 
of  the  metropolis.  And  there  has  hitherto  been  no  evidence 
that  corruption  or  malpractice  has  affected  or  marred  the 
greater  part  of  the  work  which  it  has  accomplished.  The 
same  may  be  said,  too,  in  relation  to  the  conduct  of  the  vast 
majority  of  the  members  of  the  Board.  We  have  received 
very  numerous  communications,  some  anonymous,  some 
bearing  the  signature  of  the  writers,  impugning  the  action 
of  the  Board  and  certain  of  its  members,  but  against  the 
vast  majority  of  them  not  even  a  suspicion  of  corruption  or 
misconduct  has  been  breathed.  We  believe  that  many 
'''■  See  the  last  Report  of  the  Board. 


OF  LONDON  341 

members  of  the  Board  have  cheerfully  given  for  the  public 
good  much  valuable  time,  and  have  rendered  most  important 
public  services.' " 

The  change  in  the  constitution,  nature,  and  character  of 
the  central  authority  of  London  effected  by  the  Act  was 
momentous  and  far-reaching. 

Instead  of  an  indirectly  elected  body  such  as  the  Metro- 
politan Board  of  Works,  over  which  the  inhabitants  of 
London  had  practically  no  control,  there  was  brought  into 
being  a  body  directly  chosen  by  an  electorate  of  nearly  half 
a  million  of  the  ratepayers  of  the  metropolis,  responsive  to 
the  views  and  desires  of  the  electorate,  endowed  with  the 
great  authority  derived  from  its  representative  character, 
and  entrusted  with  the  carrying  out  of  the  views  and  policy 
of  London  as  one  great  city. 

London  had  been  unified  and  welded  together  into  one 
whole  by  the  constitution  of  its  new  central  authority ;  for 
the  first  time  in  his  history  it  had  been  given  a  voice — the 
voice  of  one  great  city — and  though  much  remained  to  be 
done  before  its  entrance  into  its  full  rights  as  one  city — and 
that  the  greatest  which  has  ever  existed  in  the  world — the 
idea  had  been  born,  and  had  been  embodied  in  the  statutes 
of  the  realm  that  London  was  one  great  city,  and  not  a  mere 
conglomeration  of  petty  jarring  authorities. 

The  first  election  of  councillors  took  place  on  January  17, 
1889. 

The  first  meeting  of  the  Council  took  place  on  the  21st  of 
March,  when  the  Earl  of  Bosebery  was  elected  Chairman, 
and  the  Council  entered  energetically  on  the  work  lying 
before  it. 

The  sanitary  evolution  of  London  was  vitally  involved  in 
the  change,  but  it  was  at  once  discovered  that  the  powers 
of  the  Council  relating  to  the  public  health  of  London  were 
of  a  very  limited  and  unsatisfactory  nature. 

Matters  concerning  it  were  regulated  by  the  Metropolis 
London  Management  Act  and  a  large  number  of  other  Acts, 
the  execution  of  which  was  in  the  hands  of  the  Vestries  and 
District  Boards. 

These    bodies    were    practically    uncontrolled,    and    no 


342       THE   SANITARY  EVOLUTION 

machinery  existed  for  securing  any  uniformity  of  adminis- 
tration in  the  different  parts  of  the  county. 

And  even  the  Metropolitan  Board  had  not  used  certain 
powers  it  possessed  of  making  bye-laws  for  certain  sanitary 
purposes. 

"  We  cannot,"  reported  the  Sanitary  Committee  of  the 
Council,  "too  strongly  emphasise  our  opinion  that  the 
London  County  Council  should  be  empowered  to  frame  bye- 
laws  for  the  proper  sanitary  government  of  London,  that 
the  new  or  existing  local  bodies  should  put  them  m  force, 
and  that  the  County  Council  should  be  the  supervising  body 
to  see  that  they  are  properly  carried  out." 

A  somewhat  similar  report  was  made  by  the  Housing  of 
the  Working  Classes  Committee. 

"  The  Committee,"  they  said,  "feels  that  until  the  law  is 
strengthened,  and  fuller  powers  to  enforce  the  law  are  placed 
in  the  hands  of  the  Council,  its  action  in  dealing  with 
insanitary  areas  will  be  of  an  imperfect  character." 

The  question  of  the  housing  of  the  poor  in  London  was  at 
once  energetically  taken  up  by  the  new  body. 

Representations  were  made  to  the  Government  as  to  the 
necessity  of  the  Acts  relating  to  the  housing  of  the  working 
classes  being  consolidated  and  amended. 

Consequent  upon  this,  the  Government  introduced  a  Bill 
which  was  passed — "  The  Housing  of  the  Working 
Classes  Act,  1890,"*  which  repealed  and  codified  fourteen 
enactments,  all  having  for  their  object  the  improvement  of 
the  dwellings  of  the  artizan  and  labouring  classes,  and  the 
clearing  away  of  unhealthy  areas.  Very  large  powers  were 
placed  in  the  hands  of  the  Council  and  of  the  district  autho- 
rities to  secure  the  better  housing  of  the  working  classes. 
And  the  Act  may  be  said  to  mark  a  new  era  in  the  history  of 
reform  in  the  matter  of  insanitary  areas,  giving  full  power  to 
the  Council  as  a  central  authority  to  enforce  its  provisions. 

Before  the  end  of  this  decade  Parliament  passed  two  other 

Acts  of  great  advantage  to  the  health  of  London.     One  was, 

"  The  Infectious  Diseases  Notification  Act,  1889,"  making 

the  notification  of  certain  specified  diseases  compulsory  in 

=;=  53  &  54  Vic,  cap.  70. 


OF  LONDON  343 

London — smallpox,  cholera,  diphtheria,  membraneous  croup, 
erysipelas,  scarlet  fever,  typhus,  and  other  fevers. 

In  accordance  with  well-worn  usage  London  had  been  left 
behind  in  this  matter.  Other  cities  and  even  towns  had,  by 
means  of  local  Acts,  secured  the  advantages  of  such  legisla- 
tion long  before.  So  far  back  as  1874,  indeed,  machinery 
had  been  in  existence  in  London  for  the  notification  of 
infectious  disease  in  houses  let  in  lodgings.  But  owing  to 
the  neglect  of  the  majority  of  the  Vestries  and  District  Boards 
to  make  or  enforce  regulations  under  the  Sanitary  Act  of 
1866,  that  machinery  was  left  unused  to  the  great  detriment 
of  the  people  of  London.  Thousands  of  lives  must  have 
been  sacrificed  by  this  neglect,  and  innumerable  cases  of 
preventable  disease  not  prevented.  It  was  not  until  a 
general  Act  was  passed  that  London  became  possessed  of 
the  advantages  resulting  from  such  notification. 

In  London,  indeed,  the  health  of  cattle  was  better  looked 
after  in  this  respect  than  that  of  the  people,  for  cases  of 
infectious  disease  in  cattle  had  to  be  notified  to  the  Sanitary 
Authorities. 

By  this  Act  it  was  made  compulsory  on  medical  attendants 
to  certify,  and  on  householders  to  notify,  the  existence  of 
any  of  these  diseases. 

Hitherto  information  as  to  infectious  illness  only  reached 
the  Medical  Officer  of  Health  after  a  sufficient  time  had 
elapsed  to  allow  of  the  spread  of  the  infection. 

The  results  of  the  Act  of  1889  were  soon  found  to  be  very 
beneficial  in  checking  the  spread  of  disease. 

The  receipt  of  the  notices  of  infectious  diseases  led  to  the 
more  prompt  and  general  disinfection  of  premises  where 
infectious  diseases  prevailed,  and  led  also  to  the  discovery 
of  sanitary  defects  which  might  not  otherwise  have  been 
discovered. 

The  information,  moreover,  kept  the  Medical  Officers  of 
Health  informed  of  the  progress  of  disease  not  only  in  their 
own  districts,  but  also  in  contiguous  ones,  and  so  assisted 
them  to  take  prompt  measures  for  the  eradication  of  disease 
in  their  respective  districts. 

The  other  measure  which  passed  the  legislature  in  this 


344       THE   SANITARY  EVOLUTION 

same  year  contained  provisions  of  the  highest  importance 
as  affecting  the  metropolis.  This  was  "  the  Poor  Law  Act, 
1889." 

Until  1889  patients  could  be  admitted  only  to  the  in- 
fectious hospitals  of  the  Metropolitan  Asylums  Board  on  the 
order  of  the  Relieving  Officer  and  District  Medical  Officer, 
so,  except  in  certain  cases,  the  hospitals  were  only  open  to 
Poor  Law  cases. 

This  measure  made  practical  concession  of  two  principles. 
Free  admission  to  the  hospitals  of  the  Metropolitan  Asylums 
Board  of  sick  persons  in  need  of  isolation,  and  devolution 
upon  the  Metropolitan  Poor  Fund  of  all  charges  incurred  in 
the  maintenance  of  the  sick  in  those  hospitals. 

The  Managers  were,  therefore,  enabled  to  admit  other 
than  pauper  patients  reasonably  believed  to  be  suffering  from 
fever,  smallpox,  or  diphtheria. 

The  system  was  attended  with  the  happiest  results  in 
reducing  the  amount  of  infectious  disease  in  the  metropolis, 
and  proved  a  great  boon  to  all  classes  of  the  community. 

The  Board  in  its  annual  report  wrote  : — 

"  The  Managers  are  now,  for  the  first  time  since  the 
establishment  of  the  Board  in  1867,  virtually  recognised  as 
the  Metropolitan  Authority  for  the  provision  of  accommoda- 
tion for  the  isolation  and  treatment  of  infectious  disease — 
both  pauper  and  non-pauper — and  are  now  empowered  to 
legally  perform  duties  which  the  Legislature  had  imposed 
on  the  District  Sanitary  Authorities,  but  which  the 
Managers  had  hitherto  been  called  upon  to  perform  in  con- 
sequence of  the  failure  of  most  of  such  Authorities  to  provide 
accommodation  for  non-pauper  patients." 

The  Managers  by  this  date  had  increased  the  accommoda- 
tion for  patients  afflicted  with  any  of  these  infectious 
diseases.  There  were  six  fever  hospitals,  2,463  beds ;  350 
beds  in  smallpox  hospital  ships ;  and  800  beds  in  the  hospital 
for  convalescing  smallpox  patients. 

One  other  Act*  deserves  mention  before  the  close  of  this 
decade  as  it  contained  an  unique  section  which  required  the 
Medical  Officer  of   Health,  on  notice  from   the   owner  of 

■'•  The  Customs  and  Inland  Eevenue  Act,  1890,  53  &  54  Vic.  cap.  8. 


OF   LONDON  345 

property  in  which  there  are  separate  dwellings  let  for  7s.  6d. 
or  less  a  week,  to  visit  them  and  examine  all  their  sanitary 
arrangements,  &c.,  so  as  to  he  able  to  certify  or  not — 

"That  the  house  is  so  constructed  as  to  afford  suitable 
accommodation  for  each  of  the  families  or  persons  inhabiting 
it,  and  that  due  provision  is  made  for  their  sanitary  require- 
ments." 

The  certificate,  if  granted,  was  to  be  handed  to  the  owner, 
who  was  then  able  to  obtain  the  remission  of  the  inhabited 
house  duty. 

The  owner,  therefore,  obtained  a  remission  of  taxes  to 
which  he  was  justly  liable,  because  the  dwelling  which  he 
lets  was  in  a  sanitary  condition ! 

In  many  ways,  then,  the  sanitary  evolution  of  the  great 
city  was  developing  satisfactorily,  though  by  no  means  so 
rapidly  as  was  to  be  desired,  or  as  it  might  have  developed  if 
local  governing  authorities  had  done  their  duty. 

"  The  war  of  the  community  against  individuals  for  the 
public  good,"  which  had  now  lasted  for  over  thirty  years, 
and  the  war  against  disease  in  its  most  dangerous  forms,  was 
being  waged  with  good  effect ;  and  though  an  immensity 
remained  to  be  done,  a  great  deal  had  been  accomplished. 
Larger  numbers  of  all  classes  were  beginning  to  grasp  the 
idea  and  to  realise  that  the  necessity  of  securing  and 
guarding  the  public  health  was  not  a  craze  or  form  of 
mental  aberration,  but  was  of  absolutely  vital  consequence, 
not  merely  to  certain  classes  but  to  the  great  community  of 
the  metropolis  and  to  the  nation  itself,  and  that  the  future 
welfare  and  power,  even  the  very  existence,  of  the  nation 
are  dependent  upon  it. 

Larger  numbers,  too,  were  beginning  to  see  who  really 
were  responsible  for  the  widly  prevalent  evils,  and  who  really 
were  obstructing  progress  towards  a  higher  standard  of 
public  health,  and  how  little  claim  they  had  to  considera- 
tion, either  from  the  hands  of  the  Legislature  or  of  local 
administrators. 

The  reports  of  the  Medical  Officers  of  Health  of  the 
latter  part  of  this  decade  were  distinctly  more  hopeful  in 
tone,  and  recorded  more  progress  than  ever  before. 


346       THE   SANITARY   EVOLUTION 

The  catalogue  of  things  in  which  improvement  had  taken 
place  had  lengthened — sewerage,  water  supply,  the  removal 
of  refuse,  paving,  the  regulation  of  offensive  businesses,  of 
cowhouses,  dairies,  and  bakehouses,  the  provision  of  open 
spaces,  the  better  disinfection  of  houses  and  of  infected 
articles,  the  erection  of  hospitals  for  the  isolation  of  cases 
of  infectious  diseases — all  of  which  things  were  elemental 
necessaries  if  the  public  health  was  to  be  assured. 

In  some  parishes,  in  place  of  the  smaller  class  of  houses, 
great  blocks  of  artizans'  dwellings  had  been  erected.  In 
others  great  blocks  of  flats. 

With  the  increased  wealth  of  the  population  finer 
buildings  had  been  erected  in  many  districts.  London 
had  grown  enormously  in  wealth,  and  the  wealth  showed 
itself  in  finer  public  buildings  and  private  houses.  The 
District  Board  of  Westminster,  for  instance,  said  in  their 
report  for  1885-6  :— 

"  Whether  viewed  as  to  its  character,  its  statistics,  its 
topography,  or  its  sanitary  condition,  the  change  which 
Westminster  has  undergone  in  thirty  years  can  only  be 
described  as  a  complete  transformation." 

"  In  the  St.  Margaret's  portion,  whole  streets  of  fine 
houses  which  were  occupied  by  the  nobility  and  the 
wealthy  for  residential  purposes  are  now  let  out  in  oflS.ces 
for  the  transaction  of  legal,  scientific,  or  mechanical  business, 
while  narrow  streets,  wretched  courts,  and  melancholy 
homes  of  squalid  poverty  and  misery  have  been  replaced 
by  'mansions,'  '  flats,'  &c. ;  and  on  the  other  hand  by  huge 
blocks  of  artizans'  dwellings,  comprising  upwards  of  1,200 
homes." 

The  Education  Act  was  indirectly  producing  some  good 
results  as  regarded  the  health  of  the  rising  generation. 

A  most  marked  improvement  had  come  over  the  mortality 
of  children  at  school  ages.     Mortality  has  lessened — 

5-10  years  30  per  cent. 
10-15      „      32        „ 
15-20      „      30        „  * 


*  See  speech  by  Sir  L.  Playfair  in  House  of  Commons,  March  4,  1884. 
-Hansard,  p.  529. 


OF  LONDON  347 

due  to  the  fact  that  children  had  been  gathered  into  the 
schools  from  their  crowded  and  insanitary  homes,  and  had 
thus  escaped  some  of  the  perils  of  disease. 

And  the  Medical  Officer  of  Health  for  Lambeth  referred 
to  this  same  subject  in  his  report  for  1886  : — 

"  The  children  of  the  pauper  and  mendicant  are  with- 
drawn from  the  atmosphere  of  vice  and  intemperance  to 
which  their  fathers  had  become  acclimatised,  and  are  placed 
under  supervision  in  the  schoolroom.  .  .  ." 

Some  slight  improvement  there  was  also  as  regarded  the 
mortality  of  children  under  five  years,  though  in  many 
parishes  it  was  still  fearfully  high. 

In  Mile-End-Old-Town,  for  instance,  in  1890  the 
deaths  under  five  years  amounted  to  51  per  cent,  of  all 
deaths.  In  Deptford  district  in  1890-1  they  amounted  to 
50  per  cent.  In  Bermondsey  in  1889  they  amounted 
to  52  per  cent.  In  St.  Olave,  Southwark,  in  1888-9  to 
49^  per  cent.  In  St.  Mary,  Newington,  in  1890,  very 
slightly  under  50  per  cent. 

Infantile  mortality  was  becoming  of  greater  concern  than 
ever  as  the  birth-rate  was  showing  a  decided  diminution — 
that  for  1889  being  the  lowest  on  record  since  1849. 

Though  the  tables  as  to  death-rate  in  many  of  the  parishes 
were  still  more  or  less  vitiated  by  various  local  circumstances, 
there  was  considerable  unanimity  that  the  death-rate  was 
falling  and  the  public  health  better.  Some  diseases  which 
had  previously  claimed  their  victims  by  thousands,  now  only 
claimed  them  by  hundreds.  Death  from  tubercular  disease 
had  steadily  fallen,  and  the  mean  death-rate  from  phthisis 
in  London  showed  a  very  satisfactory  decrease  between 
1861-70  and  1881-^0.* 

The  Lancet  of  January,  1887,  stated  that,  measured  by 
its  recorded  death-rate,  London  was  healthier  in  1887  than 
in  any  year  on  record. 

In  the  Strand  in  1886  :— 

"  The  efforts  that  have  been  made  by  the  Board  and  its 
officers  have  resulted  in  a  marked  and  continuous  improve- 
ment in  the  sanitary  state  of  the  district." 

''''■  See  Eeport  from  Royal  Commission  on  Tuberculosis,  1898. 


348    SANITARY  EVOLUTION  OF  LONDON 

In  St.  Pancras  in  1888  the  death-rate  was  **  by  far  the 
lowest  yet  recorded." 

In  Bermondsey,  in  the  same  year,  **  so  few  deaths  have 
not  occurred  since  1865." 

These  and  similar  reports  from  other  districts  showed 
that  sanitary  progress  was  being  made.  But,  unfortunately, 
in  the  autumn  of  1888  there  was  an  epidemic  of  measles  of 
exceptional  severity,  which  raised  the  death-rate.  And  in 
1890  there  was  a  sudden  increase  from  18*4  per  1,000  to  21*4, 
a  mortality  which  was  higher  than  any  since  1882. 

The  increase  served  to  show  the  great  necessity  there  was 
for  unceasing  watchfulness  and  for  steady  perseverance  in 
sanitary  work.  The  forces  of  disease  are  ever  on  the  watch 
for  the  opportunity  to  work  their  evil  will,  and  there  were 
still  many  weak  places  in  the  defences  against  them.  The 
central  government  of  London  had  been  improved  enor- 
mously, but  the  corrective  was  not  extended  to  where  it  was 
most  wanted,  namely,  the  local  Sanitary  Authorities,  the 
Vestries  and  District  Boards. 


CHAPTEE  VI 

1891-1901 

In  1891  the  census  once  more  gave  authoritative  figures  as 
to  the  population  of  the  metropoHs  of  London.  The 
population  had  increased  from  3,830,297  to  4,228,317. 

The  increase  had  been  in  a  somewhat  lower  ratio  than  the 
population  of  England  and  Wales  as  a  whole,  and  the  fact 
was  notable  inasmuch  as  it  was  the  first  time  that  such  a 
phenomenon  had  presented  itself,  London  having  been 
found  in  every  preceding  intercensal  period  to  have  gained 
more  or  less  in  its  proportions  as  compared  with  the  country 
at  large. 

The  movements  of  population  had  followed  very  much  the 
same  lines  as  in  the  previous  decade.  In  the  central  parts — 
under  the  pressure  of  the  great  economic  forces — the  popula- 
tion had  increased.  In  the  outer  parts  it  had  increased,  but 
"  the  wide  belt  of  suburbs  was  beginning  to  show  some 
signs  of  repletion." 

Immigration  into  London  had  greatly  diminished  in  the 
decade.  Fewer  immigrants  had  come  from  the  various 
counties  of  England  and  Wales,  and  the  proportion  of  the 
inhabitants  of  London  who  had  been  born  elsewhere  had 
fallen  from  308  persons  per  1,000  in  1881  to  283  in  1891. 

Thus  the  influx  of  country  people,  mostly  in  the  prime  of 
life,  and  the  admixture  of  fresh  country  blood  into  the  urban 
population  of  London  was  undergoing  diminution — a  cir- 
cumstance which,  in  the  long  run,  would  materially  influence 
the  physique  of  the  people. 

Three  important  facts  came  into  view  with  the  figures  set 

349 


350       THE   SANITARY  EVOLUTION 

out  in  the  census,   giving  food  for  thoughtful  minds  as 
regarded  the  future  of  London. 

The  first  was  that  the  rate  of  increase  of  the  population 
had  again  slackened  off.  The  flood  tide  of  population  was 
not  now  flowing  so  fast. 

The  second  was  that  the  population  was  heing  affected  by 
migration.  The  natural  increase  of  the  population  had  been 
510,384,  the  actual  increase  396,199 — so  that  London  had 
lost  by  the  excess  of  emigration  over  immigration  more 
than  114,000  persons.  This  was  the  first  time  such  an  event 
had  happened. 

London's  boundaries,  however,  were  very  arbitrary  and 
haphazard,  and  this  emigration  was  probably  only  to  places 
immediately  outside  London  for  residence  at  night,  whilst 
work  was  performed  in  London  during  the  day — as  illus- 
trated by  the  "  City  "  and  the  Strand,  where  huge  differences 
existed  between  the  day  and  night  populations.  The  figures 
showed,  however,  a  movement  of  population  which  was 
bound  to  have  an  effect  upon  the  sanitary  condition  of  the 
people. 

A  third  and  portentous  fact,  ascertained  correctly  by  aid 
of  the  census  figures,  was  the  decline  of  the  birth-rate  in 
London.  This  had  fallen  remarkably  since  1881.  It  was 
then  34"7  per  1,000  living.     It  was  now  81"9. 

Deducible  from  the  census  figures,  reliable  calculations 
could  also  be  made  as  to  the  death-rate  in  the  metropolis. 

In  1891  it  was  practically  the  same  as  in  1881,  being  21*4 
per  1,000.  It  might  be  inferred  that  these  latter  figures  did 
not  afford  much  testimony  to  the  effects  of  sanitary  adminis- 
tration and  labours,  but  the  pause  in  the  steady  decline  was 
only  a  temporary  one. 

The  authoritative  and  accurate  records  thus  afforded 
decennially  by  the  census  are  invaluable  in  tracing  some  of 
the  most  important  developments  in  the  sanitary  evolution 
of  London. 

Another  very  noteworthy  change  was  also  brought  into 
prominence  by  the  census.  This  was  the  continued  rapid 
growth  of  the  population  immediately  outside  the  boundaries 
of  the  County  of  London. 


OF   T.ONDON  351 

Between  1871  and  1881  it  had  increased  312,000.  Be- 
tween 1881  and  1891  it  had  increased  by  469,000,  and  now 
in  1891  it  stood  at  1,405,000,  having  more  than  doubled 
since  1871. 

A  passage  in  the  report  of  the  Medical  Officer  of  Health 
for  Islington  in  1895  illustrates  this  so  far  as  his  own 
district  was  concerned  : — 

"  The  fact  cannot  be  burked  that  many  of  the  better 
classes  have  gone  further  into  the  country  to  live,  induced 
to  do  so  by  the  increased  facilities  for  travelling  that  rail- 
ways have  provided.  .  .  The  same  facilities  have  also 
checked  the  influx  of  people  to  the  same  extent  as  formerly, 
so  that  now  in  northern  London  people  are  flocking  to 
Hornsea  and  Hampstead  and  thereaway." 

The  fact  was  that  the  metropolis  had  burst  its  boundaries, 
and  just  as  it  had  grown  up  around  the  "  City  "  so  now  the 
"  outer  ring,"  as  it  was  called,  was  growing  up  around  it. 

How  little  reliance  could  be  placed  on  the  intercensal 
estimates  of  Medical  Officers  of  Health  as  to  the  number  of 
inhabitants  and  the  death-rate,  is  illustrated  by  the  following 
passage  from  the  report  of  the  Medical  Officer  of  Health  for 
Islington  in  1891 : — 

"  There  was  an  error  amounting  to  nearly  50,000  in  the 
estimated  population  of  the  parish  in  1891 ;  consequently  all 
statistics  based  on  the  estimated  figures  during  the  decade 
1881-91  are  more  or  less  erroneous." 

Also  "  the  mortality  returns  were  not  kept  in  such  a 
manner  as  to  lead  to  accuracy,  for  while  all  deaths  of  non- 
residents were  excluded,  the  deaths  of  residents  dying  out- 
side the  district  in  similar  institutions  were  not  included. 

"  It  is  impossible  to  make  an  accurate  statement  as  to  the 
correct  meaning  of  the  mortality  returns — the  returns  are 
erroneous." 

A  similar  miscalculation'  was  made  by  the  Vestry  of  St. 
George,  Hanover  Square.  In  their  report  for  1890-1  they 
stated  that  they  had  no  reason  to  believe  that  the  population 
was  much  different  from  what  it  was  in  1871  and  1881. 
The  census,  however,  showed  that  it  had  fallen  over  11,000. 

In  each  successive  census  the  number  of  inhabited  houses 


352       THE   SANITARY   EVOLUTION 

in  London  was  enumerated.  In  this  one  the  number  was 
547,120— being  an  increase  of  nearly  60,000  ;  but  not  much 
instruction  was  to  be  obtained  from  such  general  figures 
beyond  the  fact  that  houses  were  becoming  more  and  more 
densely  packed. 

The  substitution  of  blocks  of  dwellings  for  small  houses 
had  also  made  considerable  progress  during  the  intercensal 
period.* 

The  same  reasons  as  to  the  diminution  of  the  number  of 
houses  in  the  central  parts  of  London  continued  to  be  given 
by  Medical  Officers  of  Health. 

In  St.  George-in-the-East  it  had  been  brought  about  "  by 
the  extension  of  warehouses  and  the  demolition  of  insanitary 
property."  In  St.  Martin-in-the-Fields  it  was  "  due  to 
many  former  residents  having  removed  to  the  country,  and 
to  the  demolition  of  so  many  houses  for  improvements."  In 
the  Strand  to  the  fact  that  the  district  was  becoming  like  all 
the  central  parts  of  London,  "a  business,  as  distinguished 
from  a  residential  district."  The  Vestry  of  St.  James' 
reported  that  "buildings  formerly  occupied  as  dwellings 
were  being  replaced  by  warehouses  and  business  premises 
commanding  a  higher  rent.  As  the  centre  of  trade  extends, 
this  condition  of  things  must  be  expected  to  continue,  just 
as  the  increasing  volume  of  trade  has  converted  the  City  of 
London  at  night  from  a  populous  place  to  little  more  than  a 
city  of  caretakers,"  and  they  drew  attention  to  the  "  enormous 
number  of  people  engaged  in  business  in  the  parish  during 
the  day  time  who  resided  elsewhere." 

On  the  south  side  of  the  river  the  same  story  was  told. 
The  Medical  Officer  of  Health  for  Lambeth  remarking  in 
his  report  that — 

"  The  displacement  of  population  from  the  central  districts 
of  Lambeth,  and  the  settlement  of  population  in  those 
districts  which  are  situated  in  the  outer  ring,  or  on  the 
circumference  of  the  inner,  is  a  part  of  a  greater  move- 
ment which  affects  the  whole  metropolitan  area." 

The  census  of  1891  is  specially  memorable  by  the  fact 
that  for  the  first  time  a  mass  of  most  valuable  information 

*  See  General  Eeport  of  Census  Commissioners,  P.P.  1904,  vol.  cviii. 


OF  LONDON  353 

was  obtained  which  was  wholly  new,  and  which  threw  a 
blaze  of  light  upon  the  condition  of  the  housing  of  the 
population  of  London. 

For  the  first  time  full  details  were  obtained  and  published 
as  to  the  numbers  of  the  people  living  in  tenements  of  less 
than  five  rooms  and  the  numbers  and  character  of  the  tene- 
ments they  lived  in. 

A  tenement  was  defined  as  "  any  house  or  part  of  a  house 
separately  occupied  either  by  the  owner  or  by  a  tenant." 

These  tenements  were  classified  into  those  of  one  room, 
two  rooms,  three  rooms,  and  four  rooms  ;  and  the  number  of 
persons  inhabitating  each  of  these  classes  of  tenements  was 
given. 

The  nearest  approach  to  information  of  this  sort  had  been 
given  by  Mr.  Marchant  Williams  in  1884,  but  it  was  only 
for  a  particular  area  in  London.  The  information  now  given 
related  to  the  whole  of  London. 

The  total  number  of  tenements  in  London  in  1891  was 
stated  to  be  937,606. 

Of  these,  630,569  were  tenements  of  less  than  five  rooms. 
And  of  these — 

172,502  were  tenements  of  one  room. 
189,707  „  „  two  rooms. 

153,189  „  „  three     „ 

115,171  „  „  four      „ 

An  examination  of  the  detailed  figures  revealed  some 
astounding  facts. 

In  the  central  group  of  parishes  and  districts,  in  the 
parish  of  St.  Luke  21,937  persons,  or  over  one-half  of  the 
population,  lived  in  tenements  of  one  or  two  rooms ;  in 
Clerkenwell,  over  33,000  persons  ;  and  in  Holborn,  over 
16,000 — practically  one-half. 

In  the  eastern  group,  in  Whitechapel,  close  on  33,000 
people,  or  over  44  per  cent.,  lived  in  tenements  of  one  or 
two  rooms.  In  Shoreditch,  over  50,000,  or 40  per  cent.;  in 
Bethnal  Green,  45,000  persons,  or  38*4  per  cent. ;  in  St. 
George-in-the-East,  43  per  cent,  of  the  population. 

In  the  northern  group,  in  St.  Pancras  95,000,  or  over  40 
per  cent.,  lived  in  tenements  of  one  or  two  rooms ;  and  in 

24 


354       THE   SANITARY  EVOLUTION 

one  district  of  the  Parish,  namely  Somerstown,  57  per  cent, 
of  the  population  were  living  in  such  tenements.  In  St. 
Marylebone  over  58,000  lived  in  such  tenements. 

In  the  western  group  over  173,000  persons  lived  in  tene- 
ments of  one  or  two  rooms. 

And  on  the  south  side  of  the  Thames,  in  Bermondsey 
close  upon  24,000  lived  in  tenements  of  one  or  two  rooms  ; 
in  Camberwell,  30,000  ;  in  Lambeth,  61,000  ;  in  Newington, 
31,000  ;  in  St.  Saviour  over  41  per  cent.,  and  in  St.  George- 
the-Martyr  26,000,  or  over  43  per  cent. 

And  examining  the  numbers  of  persons  living  in  one-room 
tenements,  it  appeared  that  in  Chelsea  one-tenth  of  the 
population  lived  in  such  tenements;  in  St.  Marylebone 
somewhat  less  than  a  sixth ;  in  Holborn  a  fifth  ;  and  in  St. 
George-in-the-East  between  a  fourth  and  a  fifth.  These 
figures  show  how  large  a  proportion  of  the  population  began, 
spent,  and  ended  their  existence  within  the  four  walls  of  a 
single-room  tenement. 

The  total  result  shown  was  that  in  the  metropolis 
1,063,000  persons,  or  one  quarter  of  the  population,  lived  in 
one-  or  two-room  tenements,  and  1,250,000  in  three-  or  four- 
room  tenements ;  making  a  total  of  over  2,310,000,  or  well 
over  half  of  the  population  living  in  tenements  of  less  than 
five  rooms. 

Of  still  deeper  interest  and  import  was  the  information 
obtained  as  to  that  dreadful  factor  in  London  life — "  over- 
crowding." An  effort  was  now  for  the  first  time  made  to 
get  reliable  information  upon  this  matter.  Hitherto  it  was 
only  by  piecing  together  the  statements  made  by  some  of  the 
Medical  Officers  of  Health  as  to  overcrowding  in  their 
respective  parishes  that  one  could  form  even  the  crudest 
idea  of  what  the  sum  total  in  London  actually  amounted  to. 

Here,  at  last,  was  material  enabling  accurate  calculations 
to  be  made,  not  only  of  overcrowding  in  each  separate 
parish  or  district,  but  in  London  as  a  whole. 

The  Census  Commissioners  laid  down  the  principle — 

"That  ordinary  tenements  which  have  more  than  two 
occupants  per  room,  bedrooms  and  sitting-rooms  included, 
may  be  considered  as  unduly  overcrowded. 


OF  LONDON  355 

"  We  may,"  they  wrote,  "  be  tolerably  certain  that  the 
rooms  in  tenements  with  less  than  five  rooms  will  not  in 
any  but  exceptional  cases  be  of  large  size,  and  that  ordinary 
tenements  which  have  more  than  two  occupants  per  room, 
bedrooms  and  sitting-rooms  included,  may  safely  be  con- 
sidered as  unduly  overcrowded." 

By  using  the  information  given  in  the  tables,  and  exclud- 
ing all  one-roomed  tenements  with  not  more  than  two 
occupants,  all  two-roomed  tenements  with  not  more  than 
four  occupants,  all  three-roomed  tenements  with  not  more 
than  six,  and  all  four-roomed  tenements  with  not  more  than 
eight  occupants,  the  desired  information  would  be  obtained. 
And  they  added  : — 

"  Each  Sanitary  Authority  is  now  provided  with  the  means 
of  examining  with  much  precision  into  the  house  accommo- 
dation of  its  district." 

Provided  with  the  tables  as  to  the  occupants  of  tene- 
ments, the  Medical  Officer  of  Health  for  the  London  County 
Council,  in  his  report  for  1891,  worked  out  the  figures 
for  the  metropolis.  The  result  showed  that  there  were  in 
London  145,613  tenements  of  less  than  five  rooms  apiece,  in 
each  of  which  there  were  more  than  two  inhabitants  per 
room,  and  each  of  which  consequently  was  "  overcrowded." 

But  it  is  when  one  ascertains  the  number  of  persons 
living  in  these  overcrowded  tenements  that  one  realises 
what  the  extent  of  overcrowding  was.  In  round  numbers, 
one-fifth  of  the  entire  population  of  London  lived  in  these 
tenements.  The  total  population  was  4,200,000 ;  the 
number  of  "overcrowded"  persons  was  830,000. 

A  few  illustrations  of  the  overcrowding  in  certain  parishes 
brings  the  meaning  of  these  figures  home  still  more. 

In  Clerkenwell,  25,600  persons  lived  in  overcrowded 
tenements ;  in  St.  Luke,  18,700  persons ;  in  Shoreditch, 
41,700;  in  Islington,  64,600;  in  Kensington,  28,700;  in 
Lambeth,  43,600.  The  larger  proportion  of  these  lived 
in  one-  or  two-room  tenements. 

Figures  are  dry  things  to  read  and  difficult  to  understand. 
To  appreciate  the  true  meaning  and  import  of  these,  and 
to  enable  one  who  reads  them  to  at  all  realise  the  conditions 


356      THE  SANITARY  EVOLUTION 

of  existence  of  these  hundreds  of  thousands  of  people,  one 
must  recall  to  mind  the  descriptions  given  by  many  of  the 
Medical  Officers  of  Health  of  tenement-houses;  of  all  the 
misery,  the  filth,  the  sickness,  the  physical  and  moral 
degradation    of   life   in   tenement-rooms. 

These  facts  now  for  the  first  time  revealed  the  full 
magnitude  and  momentous  nature  of  the  problem  of  the 
sanitary  housing  of  the  people. 

The  year  1891  is  memorable  in  the  history  of  the  sanitary 
evolution  of  London  for  "  the  Public  Health  (London)  Act, 
1891,"  *  V7hich  consolidated  and  amended  the  laws  then 
existing  in  connection  with  the  public  health  of  the 
metropolis. 

The  state  of  the  law  was  recognised  as  very  unsatisfactory, 
being  scattered  over  some  thirty  statutes  or  more — a  con- 
dition of  things  which  was  greatly  to  the  disadvantage  of 
the  public  health  of  London. 

Moreover,  in  accordance  with  the  extraordinary  custom, 
London,  which  on  account  of  its  huge  population  needed 
sanitary  legislation  almost  more  than  any  other  place,  had 
been  excepted  from  much  sanitary  legislation  which  had 
been  in  operation  for  many  years,  with  the  most  beneficial 
results,  in  the  remainder  of  the  country.  Part  of  this 
legislation  was  at  long  last  extended  to  London.  Many 
amendments  were  made,  recommendations  of  the  Eoyal 
Commission  of  1884  were  given  effect  to,  new  provisions 
introduced,  and  the  general  result  was  a  Sanitary  Code 
for  London — imperfect  still  in  some  important  respects,  but 
a  great  advance  on  anything  which  London  had  previously 
possessed. 

The  Act  came  into  operation  on  the  1st  of  January,  1892, 
and  it  applied  to  the  Administrative  County  of  London 
only;  some  few  of  the  provisions  extending  to  the  "City." 

And  for  the  first  time  the  new  Central  Authority — the 
County  Council — with  extended  powers,  occupied  a  promi- 
nent place  in  this  legislation. 

Once  more  did  Parliament  enact  the  oft-ignored  direction 

■'•  See  speech  of  the  President  of  the  Local  Government  Board,  Mr, 
Ritchie,  in  introducing  the  Bill  in  April.    Hansard,  1891,  vol.  ccclii. 


OF  LONDON  367 

that  "  it  shall  be  the  duty  of  every  sanitary  authority  to 
cause  to  be  made  from  time  to  time  inspection  of  their 
district "  for  detection  of  nuisances — a  duty  so  shamelessly 
neglected — and  "  to  put  in  force  the  powers  vested  in  them 
relating  to  public  health  and  local  government  so  as  to 
secure  the  proper  sanitary  condition  of  all  premises  in  their 
district." 

With  a  view  to  secure  fit  and  proper  persons  as  Medical 
Officers  of  Health  and  Sanitary  Inspectors,  their  appointment 
was  made  subject  to  the  regulations  of  the  Local  Govern- 
ment Board, 

The  Act  greatly  strengthened  the  law  both  as  to  the  pre- 
vention and  definition  of  nuisances.  It  provided  for  the 
immediate  abatement  of  a  nuisance,  not  only  where  actually 
proved  to  be  injurious  or  pre  judical  to  health,  but  also  where 
it  was  dangerous  to  health.  It  gave  to  any  person  the  right 
to  give  information  of  nuisances  to  the  sanitary  authority 
instead  of  that  right  being  limited  to  the  person  affected 
by  the  nuisance ;  and  it  extended  to  a  Sanitary  Authority 
the  power  to  take  proceedings  for  the  abatement  of  nui- 
sances arising  in  the  district  of  another  authority  should 
the  nuisance  injuriously  affect  the  inhabitants  of  their  own 
district.  It  transferred  from  the  police  to  the  local  authority 
the  enforcement  of  the  provisions  of  the  law  against  smoke 
nuisances.  It  dealt  with  the  removal  of  refuse.  It  ex- 
tended the  previous  laws  as  to  the  adulteration  of  food  and 
drugs,  and  the  inspection  of  articles  intended  for  the  food 
of  man.  It  enacted  that  a  newly-erected  dwelling-house 
must  not  be  occupied  until  a  certificate  had  been  obtained 
of  the  Sanitary  Authority  to  the  effect  that  a  proper  and 
sufficient  supply  of  water  exists  ;  and  made  the  provisions 
as  to  the  occupation  of  underground  rooms  as  dwellings 
more  stringent  and  effective. 

The  notification  and  prevention  of  the  infectious  and 
epidemic  diseases,  the  provision  of  hospitals,  ambulances, 
and  many  other  branches  of  the  great  subject — the  health 
of  the  public — were  legislated  upon.  Additional  duties 
were  imposed  on  the  Sanitary  Authority  in  the  matter  of 
disinfection;   the  practical  result   of  which   was   that   the 


358       THE   SANITARY  EVOLUTION 

whole  cost  of  disinfecting  houses,  and  cleansing  and  dis- 
infecting bedding,  clothing,  &c.,  was  thrown  upon  the  rates. 
In  several  matters  the  option  given  in  previous  legislation 
to  local  authorities  to  administer  the  law  was  taken  away, 
and  the  duty  made  imperative.  Parliament  evidently  had 
realised  the  hostility  of  many  of  the  Vestries  to  administer- 
ing some  of  the  principal  provisions  of  sanitary  law,  and  the 
word  "  shall "  figured  much  more  frequently  than  ever 
before. 

The  hitherto  optional  provision  of  mortuaries  by  the 
sanitary  authorities  was  made  compulsory,  the  need  for 
suitable  and  convenient  places  for  the  reception  of  the  dead 
during  the  time  that  bodies  are  awaiting  burial  having  long 
been  felt,  particularly  in  the  poorer  districts,  where  bodies 
awaiting  burial  were  of  necessity  frequently  kept  in  living 
rooms  under  conditions  dangerous  to  health,  especially 
where  the  case  was  an  infectious  one. 

Among  these  "  shalls  "  was  that  most  important  of  all 
health  subjects — overcrowding — and  the  condition  of  the 
tenement-houses  of  London.  In  this  matter  the  local 
authorities  had  through  a  quarter  of  a  century  been  tried 
in  the  balance  and  found  wanting,  and  it  was  enacted 
(Sec.  94)  :— 

"  Every  Sanitary  Authority  shall  make  and  enforce  such 
bye-laws  as  are  requisite  for  the  following  matters  (that 
is  to  say) :  (a)  for  fixing  the  number  of  persons  who  may 
inhabit  a  house,  or  part  of  a  house,  which  is  let  in  lodgings  ; 
(6)  for  the  registration  of  houses  so  let  or  occupied ;  (c)  for 
the  inspection  of  such  houses ;  .  .  .  {d)  for  enforcing 
drainage  for  such  houses,  and  for  promoting  cleanliness  and 
ventilation  in  such  houses ;  (e)  for  the  cleansing  and  lime- 
washing  at  stated  times  of  the  premises  ;  (/)  for  the  taking 
of  precautions  in  case  of  any  infectious  disease." 

In  another  matter,  which  the  Vestries  had  long  opposed, 
their  hostility  was  overborne.  They  were  now  required  to 
appoint  "  an  adequate  number  of  fit  and  proper  persons  as 
sanitary  inspectors,"  and,  in  case  of  their  failure  to  do  so, 
the  Local  Government  Board  was  enabled,  on  the  complaint 
of  the  Council,  to  order  the  appointment  of  a  proper  number. 


OF  LONDON  359 

The  new  Central  Authority,  directly  representative  of  the 
whole  of  London,  was  not  constituted  the  chief  sanitary 
authority  for  London,  nor  even  a  sanitary  authority.  It  was 
given  power  to  make  bye-laws  for  the  prevention  of  nuisances 
of  various  sorts  in  London,  except  as  regarded  the  "  City," 
to  license  cow-houses,  and  slaughter-houses,  to  appoint 
Inspectors  to  inspect  them,  and  also  dairies  and  milkshops, 
and  it  could  extend  the  number  of  infectious  diseases  to 
be  notified. 

But  most  important  of  all  was  the  power  given  to  the 
County  Council  (by  Section  100),  which  enacted,  on  it  being 
proved  to  the  satisfaction  of  the  Council,  that  any  Sanitary 
Authority  (except  the  Commissioners  of  Sewers  of  the  City) 
had  made  default  in  doing  their  duty  under  this  Act  with 
respect  to  the  removal  of  any  nuisance,  the  institution  of 
any  proceedings,  or  the  enforcement  of  any  bye-laws,  the 
Council  might  institute  any  proceedings  and  do  any  act 
which  the  Authority  might  have  instituted  and  done,  such 
Authority  being  made  liable  to  pay  the  Council's  expenses 
in  so  doing. 

And,  furthermore,  Section  101  provided  that  "  when 
complaint  is  made  by  the  Council  to  the  Local  Government 
Board  that  a  Sanitary  Authority  have  made  default  in 
executing  and  enforcing  any  provision  which  it  is  their 
duty  to  execute  or  enforce  under  the  Act,  or  of  any  bye-law 
made  in  pursuance  thereof,  the  Local  Government  Board, 
if  satisfied  after  due  inquiry  that  the  Sanitary  Authority 
have  been  guilty  of  the  alleged  default,  and  that  the  com- 
plaint cannot  be  remedied  under  the  other  provisions  of 
this  Act,  shall  make  an  order  limiting  the  time  for  the 
performance  of  the  duty  of  such  authority  in  the  matter 
of  such  complaint.  If  such  duty  is  not  performed  by  the 
time  Umited  in  the  order,  the  order  may  be  enforced  by 
writ  of  mandamus,  or  the  Local  Government  Board  may 
appoint  the  Council  to  perform  such  duty,"  and  the  expenses 
were  to  be  paid  by  the  Sanitary  Authority  in  default." 

"  It  seems  to  me  right  and  proper,"  said  Mr.  Eitchie 
in  introducing  the  Bill,  "  that  in  regard  to  the  great  question 
of  pubhc  health  in  London  the  County  Council  ought  to 


360       THE   SANITARY  EVOLUTION 

be  charged  with  the  performance  of  duty,  which  in  the 
opinion  of  the  Local  Government  Board  after  inquiry,  has 
not  been  adequately  and  properly  performed  by  the  local 
authority." 

These  sections  were  strongly  opposed  by  some  of  the 
prominent  Vestries,  being  held  to  be  "  degrading  and 
destructive  of  local  self-government  by  completely  sub- 
ordinating the  local  to  the   central   authority." 

The  self-government  which  many  people  like  is  the  being 
able  to  do  exactly  as  they  themselves  like,  regardless  of 
everybody  else's  likes  and  rights.  And  it  is  the  same 
with  many  local  government  authorities.  Their  idea  of 
self-government  too  often  is  to  govern  for  their  own  objects, 
and  their  own  interests,  regardless  of  the  infinitely  greater 
interests  and  rights  of  the  great  community  around  them ; 
and  when  it  is  brought  home  to  them  that  they  are  only 
a  small  integral  part  of  a  great  community,  that  their  sphere 
of  self-government  can  only  be  a  very  limited  one,  and  that 
they  cannot  be  allowed  either  by  action  or  neglect  to  injure 
the  community,  they  resent  it  with  no  little  outcry. 

The  principle  of  self-government,  however,  was  not  one  to 
which  appeal  could  be  made,  for  it  had  been  dragged  through 
the  mire  by  too  many  of  the  local  authorities.  Once  the 
unity  of  London  assumed  definite  shapes,  as  it  did  in  the  new 
Central  Authority  representing  the  whole  of  London,  Vestry 
self-government,  except  upon  certain  lines  and  within  certain 
limitations,  was  doomed ;  for  it  would  have  to  make  way  for 
a  far  larger  system  of  self-government — the  self-government 
of  London  by  Londoners. 

Moreover,  prolonged  experience  had  proved  that  the 
Vestries  could  not  be  relied  on  to  enforce  the  laws,  and  it 
was  manifest  that  some  effective  provision  must  be  devised 
for  preventing  them  perpetually  thwarting  the  intentions  and 
defeating  the  imperative  enactments  of  Parliament  designed 
for  the  welfare  of  the  community  at  large. 

It  was  unfortunate,  however,  for  the  sanitary  welfare  of 
great  masses  of  the  people  of  London  that  the  principle  thus 
recognised  and  adopted  by  Parliament  was  not  given  fuller 
effect  to  than  it  was,  for  it  is  the  only  principle  upon  which 


OF  LONDON  361 

any  really  sound  system  of  public  health  administration  for 
London  can  be  based. 

A  few  years  later  the  principle  was  reaffirmed  by  Parlia- 
ment. 

During  the  summer  of  1892  the  appearance  of  cholera  on 
the  west  coast  of  Europe — particularly  Hamburg — exposed 
London  to  the  importation  of  cases  of  this  disease.  The 
unsatisfactory  position  of  the  Council  with  regard  to  London 
administration  for  the  prevention  of  epidemic  disease  was  at 
once  made  evident. 

In  order  to  remove  doubts  as  to  the  Council's  responsi- 
bilities as  to  the  administration  of  the  law  relating  to 
epidemic  diseases,  a  provision  defining  the  Council's  posi- 
tion was  included  in  the  Council's  General  Powers  Bill, 
which  was  passed  by  Parliament  in  1893.  This  provision 
was   to  the  following  effect : — 

"  The  Local  Govermnent  Board  may  assign  to  the  Council 
any  powers  and  duties  under  the  epidemic  regulations  made 
in  pursuance  of  Section  134  of  the  Public  Health  Act,  1875, 
which  they  may  deem  it  desirable  should  be  exercised  and 
performed  by  the  Council. 

"  If  the  Local  Government  Board  are  of  opinion  that  any 
sanitary  authority  in  whose  default  the  Council  has  power 
to  proceed  and  act  under  the  Public  Health  (London)  Act, 
1891,  is  making  or  is  likely  to  make  default  in  the  execution 
of  the  said  regulations,  they  may  by  order  assign  to  the 
Council,  for  such  time  as  may  be  specified  in  the  order,  such 
powers  and  duties  of  the  sanitary  authority  under  the  regula- 
tions as  they  may  think  fit." 

Parliament  thus  once  more  emphasised  the  policy  of  the 
local  sanitary  authorities  being  subordinated  to  the  Central 
Authority. 

The  new  Central  Authority — representative  of  the  people 
of  London — gave  early  evidence  of  vitality  and  energy.  The 
heir  had  come  into  his  property,  with  high  ideals  as  to  its 
government,  and  as  to  the  welfare  of  the  people.  A  new 
power  had  suddenly  been  brought  into  London  life — an 
unknown  but  vigorous  force.  A  capable  staff  was  at  once 
organised,   and  a  Medical   Officer  and  Assistant   Medical 


362       THE   SANITARY   EVOLUTION 

Officer  of  Health  appointed.  Inquiries  and  investigations 
into  the  various  matters  most  concerning  the  welfare 
of  the  citizens  of  London  were  at  once  undertaken,  and 
conclusions  arrived  at,  and  action  taken,  with  a  thorough- 
ness and  a  rapidity  hitherto  unknown  in  the  administration 
of  London  affairs. 

Bye-laws  were  made  to  regulate  and  unify  the  administra- 
tion of  sanitary  laws  by  local  authorities. 

Several  of  the  water  companies  were  induced  to  give  a 
constant  supply  of  water  to  an  increased  extent. 

And  great  efforts  were  made  to  utilise  the  powers  conferred 
upon  the  Council  by  the  recently  passed  Acts — the  Housing 
of  the  Working  Classes  Act  of  1890,  and  the  Public  Health 
(London)  Act  of  1891. 

It  was  at  once  felt  that  the  problem  which  first  faced 
the  Council  was  the  housing  of  the  people,  and  the  Council 
determined  to  attack  it  on  every  side. 

In  the  belief  that  facilities  of  communication  between  the 
working  centres  of  London  and  residences  in  healthier 
localities  would  help  considerably  to  alleviate  some  of  the 
worst  effects  of  overcrowding,  and  towards  the  successful 
treatment  of  the  great  housing  problem,  action  was  taken 
to  turn  the  Cheap  Trains  Act  of  1883  to  greater  account, 
and  to  secure  greater  numbers  of  workmen's  trains  and 
more  moderate  fares ;  so  as  to  enable  workmen  to  travel 
cheaply  between  more  distant  homes  and  their  places 
of  employment. 

That  Act,  which  gave  a  large  remission  in  the  amount 
of  passenger  duty  paid  by  railway  companies,  if  the 
companies  would  provide  a  service  of  workmen's  trains, 
and  would  convey  workmen  at  less  than  the  usual  fares, 
had  so  far  not  been  made  much  use  of. 

On  investigation  it  was  found  that  the  facilities  afforded 
to  workmen,  particularly  on  certain  railways,  were  very 
inadequate.  There  were  no  workmen's  trains  at  all  on 
one  important  line — on  another  only  one  such  train  was 
run,  whilst  on  several  others  the  number  of  trains  run  was 
very  small. 
f  Eepresentations  were  made  to  the  Board  of  Trade  and 


OF   LONDON  363 

negotiations  carried  on  with  the  Eailway  Companies,  and 
by  degrees  a  considerable  extension  of  the  facilities  for  the 
conveyance  of  workmen  was  secm:ed. 

The  Council  gave  its  immediate  and  more  anxious 
attention  to  those  breeding-places  and  forcing-pits  of 
disease  and  misery,  the  insanitary  areas  in  London. 

The  Housing  Act  of  1890  (by  Part  I.)  constituted 
the  Council  the  authority  for  preparing  and  carrying  into 
effect  schemes  for  the  clearance  and  improvement  of 
insanitary  areas  which  were  of  such  size,  and  situation, 
and  character,  as  to  render  their  clearance  and  reconstruc- 
tion of  general  importance  to  the  County. 

The  tremendous  task  of  dealing  with  them  was  rendered 
more  difficult  and  costly  by  the  obligation  imposed  by 
Parliament  of  providing  housing  accommodation  for  the 
persons  displaced ;  for  in  the  lack  of  easy  means  of 
communication  with  the  outer  parts  of  London  it  was 
held  to  be  necessary  to  re-house  the  greater  number  of  them 
in  the  same  locality. 

The  Metropolitan  Board  of  "Works  had  simply  acquired 
and  cleared  the  properties,  and  disposed  of  the  sites  to 
companies  or  individuals,  placing  on  them  the  obligation 
to  erect  houses  for  the  working  classes.  Now,  however, 
the  Council  determined  itself  to  erect,  let,  and  maintain, 
the  necessary  dwellings.  The  chief  reason  for  the  change 
was  the  difficulty  experienced  in  finding  companies  or 
persons  who  were  wilHng  to  undertake  the  erection  of 
dwellings  on  some  of  the  sites. 

The  Council  had  to  complete  several  schemes  which  it 
inherited  in  an  unfinished  condition  from  the  Metropolitan 
Board  of  Works,  but  it  at  once  initiated  many  itself,  and 
carried  them  through  to  a  successful  conclusion. 

And  as  one  after  another  of  the  insanitary  areas  was 
investigated,  so  again  and  again  was  revealed  to  public 
view  the  appalling  condition  in  which  thousands  of  people — 
in  the  very  heart  of  London — dragged  out  an  existence 
more  bestial  than  human ;  horrors  piled  on  horrors — a  state 
of  things  all  the  more  awful  because  it  had  been  existing 
for  an  indefinite  number  of  years — levying  annually  the 


364       THE  SANITARY  EVOLUTION 

heaviest  of  tolls  on  those  who  came  within  its  deadly  sphere, 
and  scattering  its  poison  abroad  among  the  community  at 
large. 

There  was  the  Clare  Market  (Strand)  Scheme,  some  3 J 
acres — 3|  acres  of  human  wretchedness  and  disease  and 
misery  and  filth.  In  one  sub-area  there  were  upwards 
of  800  persons  to  the  acre.  Here  the  death-rate  was  41-32 
per  1,000  in  1894 ;  in  another  sub-area,  the  death-rate  had 
been  50*52  per  1,000  in  1893 ;  the  death-rate  for  the  whole 
area  having  been  39*03  in  1894.  And  in  addition  to  this 
was  the  unknown  sick-rate.  There  was  the  Webber  Kow 
Scheme  in  St.  George-the-Martyr,  Southwark — close  upon 
5  acres  in  extent,  with  a  death-rate  of  30'5  per  1,000. 
There  were  the  Eoby  Street  and  Baltic  Street  areas  in 
St.  Luke,  areas  which  "have  about  the  worst  reputation 
of  any  in  London." 

The  largest  scheme  which  the  Council  undertook  was 
that  known  as  "  the  Boundary  Street  Area  "  in  Bethnal 
Green.  Here  some  fifteen  acres  of  old,  dilapidated,  crowded 
dwellings — dwellings  so  insanitary  that  the  death-rate  in 
them  was  over  40  per  1,000 — were  swept  away,  entailing 
the  displacement  of  5,719  persons ;  and  the  ground  so  cleared 
was  laid  out  with  wider  streets,  and  a  large  open  space 
and  excellent  buildings  were  erected  thereon  to  contain 
5,524  persons  without  crowding.  The  Prince  of  Wales 
once  more  testified  his  deep  interest  in  the  welfare  of  the 
poorer  classes  of  London  by  opening  the  new  buildings — 
a  ceremony  which  took  place  on  the  3rd  of  March,  1900 — 
and  delivering  an  impressive  speech. 

A  summary  of  the  work  accomplished  by  the  Council 
up  to  this  time  showed  that  the  Council  had  provided, 
or  was  engaged  in  providing,  accommodation  for  35,950 
persons  at  a  total  outlay  of  close  upon  ^^2,000,000,  an 
amount  of  building  operations  which,  if  conducted  at 
one  spot,  would  have  resulted  in  the  formation  of  a  town 
of  nearly  36,000  inhabitants.* 

The  cost  of  this  work  was  enormously  heavy,  owing  to  the 
fact  that  the  arbitrator  could  and  did  award  commercial 
•'•  Statement  by  the  Clerk  of  the  London  County  Council. 


OF  LONDON  365 

value  for  the  land  ;  but,  as  was  pointed  out  by  the  Medical 
Officer  of  Health  for  the  London  County  Council  *  : — 

"The  primary  object  of  Part  I.  of  the  Act  is  not  to 
provide  artizans'  dwellings,  but  to  secure  the  removal  from 
the  midst  of  the  community  of  houses  which  are  unfit  for 
habitation,  and  the  faults  of  which  are  in  large  degree  due 
to  bad  arrangement.  "Where  houses  are  thus  situated,  and 
are  in  a  number  of  ownerships,  rearrangement  can  only  be 
carried  out  by  vesting  the  property  in  one  ownership,  that 
of  a  public  authority,  who  can  then,  by  the  making  of  new 
streets  and  by  complete  rearrangement  of  the  area,  ensure 
that  the  conditions  which  in  future  will  exist  are  such  as  are 
needed  for  the  health  of  the  inhabitants.  The  chief  value  of 
the  Act  is,  therefore,  not  so  much  the  provision  of  house 
accommodation  which  is  fit  for  habitation,  as  the  abolition 
of  houses  which  are  dangerous  to  health.  Part  I.  is  not, 
therefore,  in  itself  so  much  a  Housing  Act  as  an  Act  for  the 
removal  of  nuisances  on  a  large  scale." 

But  another  reflection  also  suggests  itself,  namely,  why 
should  the  ratepayers  of  London  have  been  obliged  to  pay 
these  high  sums  for  property  which,  by  the  culpable  neglect 
of  the  owners  and  their  predecessors,  had  been  allowed  to 
sink  into  a  condition  not  alone  exceptionally  dangerous 
to  the  lives  of  its  inhabitants,  but  a  constant  danger  to 
neighbouring  districts — even  to  London  itself.  Surely  in 
common  fairness,  those  who  had  let  it  fall  into  such  a  state 
should  have  paid  the  penalty  therefor,  and  not  the  public  of 
London,  who  had  had  no  part  in  bringing  the  property  into 
such  an  evil  condition. 

Part  II.  of  the  Act  was  mostly  a  consolidation  of  Torrens' 
Acts,  1868  and  1882,  with  amendments.  It  enabled  the 
Vestries  or  District  Boards  to  take  proceedings  before  a 
magistrate  for  the  clearing  and  demolition  of  single  houses 
unfit  for  human  habitation,  and  obstructive  buildings,  and 
empowered  them  and  the  County  Council  to  undertake 
schemes  for  the  improvement  of  areas  too  small  to  be 
dealt  with  by  the  Council. 

The  owner  might  elect  to  retain  the  site  after  the  demoli- 
-'=  See  his  Report  for  1899,  p.  63. 


366      THE  SANITARY  EVOLUTION 

tion  of  the  building,  and  in  that  case  received  compensation 
for  the  building  only.  If  the  Vestry  or  District  Board 
acquired  the  site  the  same  procedure  as  to  compensation 
had  to  be  followed  as  under  Part  I. 

A  few  schemes  were  undertaken  by  Vestries  under  this 
Part  of  the  Act,  the  Council  making  a  contribution  to  the 
cost,  and  a  few  by  the  Council.  Thus  in  St.  George-in- 
the-East,  from  November,  1890,  to  the  end  of  1894,  224 
houses  were  "represented"  as  unfit  for  habitation — grue- 
some pictures  of  dirt,  dilapidation,  and  insanitation  of  every 
form  and  variety,  and  this,  too,  after  nearly  forty  years  of 
sanitary  work  by  the  Vestry.  Many  were  closed  by  order 
of  the  magistrate,  some  by  the  owner,  some  pulled  down, 
some  repaired  and  re-let. 

Part  III.  of  the  Act  embodied  the  idea,  originally  started 
by  Lord  Shaftesbury  in  1861,  as  to  the  erection  of  labouring 
classes'  lodging-houses  by  the  local  authorities,  and  grafted 
several  amendments  thereon. 

Power  was  given  for  the  acquisition  by  the  Council  of 
land  for  the  purpose  of  erecting  lodging-houses  thereon. 
Such  land,  however,  was  to  be  within  the  Council's  jurisdic- 
tion. Under  this  part  of  the  Act  the  Council  erected  a 
common  lodging-house  in  Parker  Street  for  the  accommo- 
dation of  over  300  persons.  It  also  acquired  several  sites, 
including  the  Millbank  estate,  upon  which  it  proceeded  to 
build  houses ;  and  one  of  38  acres  at  Lower  Tooting  for  the 
erection  of  cottages  thereon. 

Altogether  the  work  performed  under  the  Act  was 
considerable,  and  the  housing  for  the  accommodation  of 
the  working  classes  made  sensible  progress,  the  sites  sold 
by  the  Metropolitan  Board  of  Works  to  trusts,  and  public 
companies,  and  private  persons,  having  been  built  upon  and 
covered  with  artizans'  dwellings. 

Private  building  was  proceeding  at  considerable  pace,  and 
in  many  parts  of  London  the  ground  was  becoming  more 
overcrowded  than  ever  with  houses. 

The  older  parts  of  London  were  being  rapidly  re-built, 
and  open  spaces  at  the  rear  of  buildings  were  being  gradually 
covered  by  buildings. 


OF  LONDON  367 

Of  St.  Pancras  the  Medical  Officer  of  Health  wrote 
(1896)  :— 

"...  There  is  a  prospect  that  in  course  of  time  the 
whole  of  the  open  space  about  buildings  may  disappear.  .  .  . 
Old  houses  possessing  yards,  areas,  open  spaces,  in  some 
form  at  the  front  or  back  or  both,  are  being  re-built  in 
such  a  manner  as  to  entirely  cover  the  whole  ground  area 
two  or  three  storeys  up — leaving  not  a  particle  of  open 
space." 

The  restrictions  imposed  by  the  Building  Acts  were  of 
the  most  illusory  character,  and  as  the  Acts  were  mostly 
future  in  their  operation,  and  not  retrospective,  their  effect 
was  also  limited.  Any  "  owner  "  was  entitled  to  re-build  on 
"  old  foundations,"  no  matter  how  crowded  the  houses  were 
on  the  spot,  so  new  buildings  were  usually  only  a  resurrec- 
tion in  huger  and  more  perpetual  and  objectionable  form  of 
the  evils  which  ought,  as  far  as  possible,  to  have  been 
eradicated. 

During  the  year  1894  the  London  Building  Law  was 
consolidated  and  amended.  The  Act  recognised,  for  the 
first  time  in  London,  the  principle  that,  in  addition  to 
the  height  of  the  building  being  proportionate  to  the  width 
of  the  street  on  which  it  abuts,  the  amount  of  open  space 
about  the  rear  of  a  building  should  also  be  proportionate  to 
its  height,  and  hence  the  future  crowding  of  buildings  on 
area  was  put  under  limitation. 

But  how  small  was  the  limitation,  how  small  the  con- 
cessions exacted  from  "  owners  "  in  this  matter,  and  how 
miserably  late  they  came  in  the  history  of  London  building 
operations. 

The  tendency  of  house  construction  in  London  was  to 
ever  larger  size,  to  greater  height.  To  how  great  an  extent 
this  had  been  carried  on  in  the  "  City  "  was  described  by 
the  Medical  Officer  of  Health  in  1894  :— 

"  It  would  be  a  fair  and  moderate  estimate  to  put  the 
superficial  area  (of  the  City)  at  four  square  unites  instead  of 
one.  We  have  only  to  point  to  the  construction  of  business 
premises — the  piling  of  one  floor  over  another  for  many 
storeys  high,  each  floor  being  occupied  by  separate  occupiers, 


368       THE   SANITARY  EVOLUTION 

forming  in  itself  a  distinct  tenancy,  having  all  the  rights 
and  privileges  of  an  independent  building,  and  claiming  as 
much  attention  from  every  branch  of  our  municipal  system 
as  if  it  stood  alone.  .  .  .  We  have,  in  fact,  to  deal  with  about 
28,000  separate  tenancies,  with  a  day  population  of  301,384." 

In  some  of  the  more  well-to-do  parts  of  the  metropolis 
great  blocks  of  buildings  were  built  and  let  out  in  flats, 
most  of  them  with  the  minimum  of  light  and  air  prescribed 
by  narrow  laws. 

In  other  districts  of  London  considerable  numbers  of 
small  houses  were  removed,  and  large  blocks  of  artizans' 
dwellings  erected  in  their  stead.  Thus,  in  the  parish  of 
St.  Luke,  nearly  one-fifth  of  the  entire  population  resided 
in  the  ten  blocks  of  artizans'  dwellings  which  existed  there. 

In  the  earlier  stages  of  the  reform  of  the  housing  of 
London  such  buildings  had  been  acclaimed  as  great 
improvements,  as  indeed  they  were.  The  later  opinions 
of  Medical  Officers  of  Health  were  not  so  laudatory.  Thus, 
in  1891,  the  Medical  Officer  of  Health  for  Whitechapel, 
after  stating  that  there  were  in  his  district  27  buildings 
having  3,127  apartments  containing  12,279  persons,  added 
that  he  was  ' '  not  enlisted  amongst  the  enthusiasts  of  this 
method  of  providing  for  the  housing  of  the  working  classes." 
In  1896  he  wrote:  "All  model  dwellings  are  not  equally 
models  of  good  sanitary  houses."     And  in  1897  : — 

"  The  increased  population  are  housed  in  huge  barrack 
buildings  which  sometimes  are  constructed  so  as  to  allow 
light  and  air  to  permeate  the  rooms  and  sometimes  not. 
The  effect  of  this  modern  invention  is  to  increase  the 
density  of  population  to  a  damaging  degree.  .  .  . 

"  That  the  direct  influence  of  these  barrack  buildings 
upon  the  health  of  their  occupants — more  especially  the 
children — is  adverse,  I  have  not  the  slightest  doubt." 

The  Vestry  of  Shoreditch  reported  in  1892-3  : — 

"  '  Model  Artizans'  Dwellings  '  do  not  appear  to  have  been 
quite  what  their  title  implied.  At  Norfolk  Buildings,  Shore- 
ditch,  on  the  Medical  Officer  of  Health  causing  them  to  be 
examined  for  a  certificate  for  exemption  from  the  inhabited 
house  duty,  the  whole  system  of  drainage  was  found  to  be  in 


OF  LONDON  369 

a  most  defective  and  dangerous  state.  A  number  of  cases  of 
typhoid,  diphtheria,  and  other  infectious  illness  had  occurred 
on  the  premises." 

And  a  couple  of  years  later  the  Chief  Sanitary  Inspector 
submitted  to  his  Vestry  a  report  on  some  so-called  "  model 
dwellings"  :  "These  blocks  of  buildings,  50  feet  high,  are 
packed  together  so  as  to  exclude  light  and  air,  and  four 
rooms  occupy  the  site  of  two  :  evil  conditions  which  the 
architect  and  owner  were  not  only  privileged  to  create,  but 
also,  and  very  practically,  in  so  doing  were  they  privileged 
to  condemn  unborn  generations  of  people,  whose  necessities 
condemn  them  to  live  in  these  tenements,  to  endure  the  evils 
of  their  creation." 

The  Medical  Officer  of  Health  for  St.  James'  wrote  : — 

"  Block  dwellings  in  such  an  area  as  St.  James'  do  not 
provide  the  conditions  in  which  healthy  children  can  be 
reared,  nor  in  which  there  can  be  a  family  life  comparable 
with  that  possible  in  the  open  suburbs  of  London." 

The  Medical  Officer  of  Health  for  St.  Olave  gave  a 
description  of  Barnham  Buildings  : — 

"  Many  of  the  rooms,  &c.,  on  the  ground  and  first  floor 
are  generally  very  dark,  and  the  buildings  have  not  been 
maintained  in  a  sanitary  condition,  notwithstanding  the 
hundreds  of  notices  that  have  been  served  the  past  five 
years.  The  average  death-rate  of  the  past  five  years  of  the 
unhealthy  tenements  was  at  least  49*6  per  1,000  and  of  the 
remainder  at  least  29 'l." 

The  Medical  Officer  of  Health  for  St.  Marylebone  gave 
an  interesting  explanation  of  the  condition  of  this  class  of 
houses : — 

**  The  following  is  a  list  of  applications,  under  the 
Customs  and  Inland  Eevenue  Act,  1891,  from  which  it 
will  be  gathered  that  it  is  quite  exceptional  for  a  block 
of  artizans'  dwellings  of  even  recent  construction  to  be  in 
a  tolerable  sanitary  condition.  The  reason  for  this  anoma- 
lous state  of  things  is,  that  in  the  building  of  these  dwellings 
the  Sanitary  Authority  seems  to  have  no  power ;  a  dwelling 
must  be  occupied  before  it  comes  under  supervision." 

In  spite  of  these  and  many  other  drawbacks,  however, 

25 


370       THE   SANITARY  EVOLUTION 

many  of  these  buildings  afforded  accommodation  far  superior 
to  that  which  had  previously  existed  on  the  spots  where 
they  were  erected,  and  provided  residence  for  large  numbers 
of  people  who  otherwise  might  have  been  doomed  to  living 
in  the  worst  class  of  tenement-house. 

Closely  connected  with  the  Public  Health  Act  of  1891 
was  another  Act  passed  in  the  same  year — "  The  Factory  and 
Workshop  Act." 

The  Select  Committee  of  the  House  of  Lords  on  the 
Sweating  System  had  finished  their  inquiry  and  reported 
in  1890.  The  evidence  given  before  it  was,  as  regarded 
factories,  workshops,  and  workplaces,  very  much  a 
repetition  of  that  which  for  thirty-five  years  had  been 
detailed  by  Medical  Officers  of  Health  as  regarded  the 
dwellings  of  the  people,  but  now  obtaining  greater  pub- 
licity attracted  more  attention. 

Overcrowding  and  insanitation  of  almost  every  conceiv- 
able kind  pursued  large  numbers  of  the  unfortunate 
workers  from  their  overcrowded  and  insanitary  tenements 
to  their  overcrowded  and  insanitary  workplaces,  and  with 
the  same  disastrous  results.  And  as  regarded  domestic 
workshops  the  conditions  were  even  worse,  workers 
spending  their  days  and  nights  often  in  the  one  room — 
sometimes  with  extra  workers  brought  in. 

Want  of  light  and  air  and  overcrowding  in  workshops 
and  factories  are  quite  as  serious  matters  as  they  are  in 
inhabited  houses. 

The  Select  Committee,  in  their  conclusions  and  recom- 
mendations, said : — 

"  The  sanitary  conditions  under  which  the  work  is 
conducted  are  not  only  injurious  to  the  health  of  the 
persons  employed,  but  are  dangerous  to  the  public, 
especially  in  the  case  of  the  trades  concerned  in  making 
clothes,  as  infectious  diseases  are  spread  by  the  sale  of 
garments  made  in  rooms  inhabited  by  persons  suffering 
from  smallpox  and  other  diseases.  Three  or  four  gas 
jets  may  be  flaring  in  the  room,  a  coke  fire  burning  in 
the  wretched  fireplace,  sinks  untrapped,  closets  without 
water,  and  altogether  the  sanitary  condition  abominable." 


OF   LONDON  371 

"A  witness  told  us  that  in  a  double  room,  perhaps 
nine  by  fifteen  feet,  a  man,  his  wife,  and  six  children 
slept,  and  in  the  same  room  ten  men  were  usually 
employed,  so  that  at  night  eighteen  persons  would  be  in 
that  one  room." 

"  In  nine  cases  out  of  ten  the  windows  are  broken 
and  filled  up  with  canvas ;  ventilation  is  impossible  and 
light  insufficient — the  workshops  are  miserable  dens. 
We  are  of  opinion  that  all  workplaces  included  in  the 
above  description  should  be  required  to  be  kept  in  a 
cleanly  state,  to  be  lime-washed  or  washed  throughout 
at  stated  intervals,  to  be  kept  free  from  noxious  effluvia, 
and  not  to  be  overcrowded — in  other  words,  to  be  treated 
for  sanitary  purposes  as  factories  are  treated  under  the 
factory  law." 

Lord  Kenry,  Chairman  of  the  Committee,  in  his  draft 
report,  said : — 

"  It  has  been  shown  that  the  dwellings  or  shops  in 
which  the  sweated  class  live  and  work  are  too  often  places 
in  which  all  the  conditions  of  health,  comfort,  and  decency 
are  violated  or  ignored.  .  .  .  Sanitary  inspection  is  totally 
inadequate,  and  the  local  bodies  have  seldom  done  their 
duty  effectually.  At  the  East  End  of  London  generally 
the  sanitary  state  of  homes  and  shops  could  not  possibly 
be  much  worse  than  it  is." 

And  Mr.  Lakeman  (Government  Inspector  under  the 
Factories  and  Workshops  Act)  said,  in  reference  to  work- 
shops :  "  I  think  that  the  evidence  given  your  Lordships 
upon  the  insanitary  state  of  those  places  is  not  at  all 
too  black." 

Once  more  the  necessity  of  inspection  was  insisted  upon. 
"  On  no  point,"  wrote  the  Chairman,  "  was  the  unanimity 
of  witnesses  more  emphatic  than  with  reference  to  the 
necessity  of  more  efficient  sanitary  inspection,  not  only  of 
workshops,  but  of  the  dwellings  of  the  poor." 

And  just  as  it  was  as  regarded  tenement-houses,  inspec- 
tion here  was  lamentably  deficient,  if  not  absolutely 
non-existent. 

'*  The    inspection  at   present   carried  on  is  totally  in- 


372       THE   SANITARY  EVOLUTION 

adequate,  and  nothing  was  more  clearly  proved  before  us 
than  the  fact  that  satisfactory  results  cannot  be  looked  for 
from  the  system  as  it  now  stands."  * 

"Even  when  an  unmistakable  cause  of  unhealthiness  is 
discovered,  and  steps  are  taken  to  remove  it,  the  process 
of  applying  the  remedy  is  slow  and  uncertain.  The  Local 
Board  meets  once  a  week  or  fortnight  .  .  .  the  landlord 
is  allowed  a  fortnight  to  carry  out  the  work ;  three  weeks 
may  elapse  before  the  inspector  can  go  and  see  it,  then 
perhaps  nothing  has  been  done ;  the  summons,  &c.,  takes 
time.  In  any  case  much  valuable  time  is  lost,  and  small- 
pox or  fever  is  allowed  to  pursue  its  ravages  with  the 
source  of  the  disease  daily  aggravated  in  intensity. 

"  At  present  the  inspectors  under  the  Factory  and  Work- 
shop Act  of  1878  have  no  power  to  deal  with  any  nuisance 
which  lies  within  the  district  over  which  the  local  authorities 
preside.  On  the  other  hand,  the  local  inspector  cannot 
interfere  should  he  discover  any  breach  of  the  Factory 
Act." 

The  Home  Secretary,  in  moving  the  second  reading  of 
the  Bill,  explained  its  scope.     He  said  : — 

"  The  design  and  object  of  this  Bill  is  to  bring  all  work- 
shops and  all  factories  up  to  the  same  sanitary  level,  and  to 
require  the  same  conditions  as  to  ventilation,  overcrowding, 
lime-washing,  and  cleanliness  to  be  applied  to  all  kinds 
of  workshops  in  which  men  alone,  or  women,  children,  and 
young  persons  are  employed.  The  Bill  does  not  deal  with 
*  domestic  workshops.'  The  President  of  the  Local 
Government  Board  will  introduce  a  Bill  dealing  with  the 
public  health,  and  the  House  may  rest  content  with 
leaving  what  is  called  '  the  domestic  workshop ' — that  is 
to  say,  the  working-man's  home  in  which  he  works  with 
the  members  of  his  family — subject  to  the  provisions  of 
the  law  of  public  health  alone.  It  is  obvious  that  in  the 
domestic  workshop  you  have  not  got  the  presence  of  the 
employer  and  the  employe.  You  have  the  members  of 
the   same  family  .  .  .  and  it  seems  to  me  that  we  may 

*  P.P.  1890,  vol.  xvii.  See  fifth  Report  from  the  Select  Committee  of 
the  House  of  Lords  on  the  Sweating  System. 


OF  LONDON  373 

allow  him  and  his  family  to  work  in  a  place  which  is 
sufficiently  good  so  far  as  sanitary  conditions  are  concerned 
for  him  and  his  family  to  live  in.  Now  that  we  are 
extending  the  sanitary  provisions  of  the  Factory  Act  to  all 
workshops  throughout  the  country,  of  whatever  kind  they 
may  be  except  the  domestic  workshop,  so  that  every 
cobbler's  shop,  every  blacksmith's  shop,  every  tailor's  shop, 
will  come  under  the  provisions  of  the  sanitary  law,  it 
seems  to  me  foolish  not  to  take  advantage  of  the  existing 
machinery  provided  by  the  local  authorities,  and  the 
enforcement  of  the  sanitary  provisions,  so  far  as  workshops 
are  concerned,  is  by  this  Bill  given  to  the  local  authorities." 

The  passing  of  the  Factory  and  Workshops  Act  (1891) 
and  of  the  PubHc  Health  (London)  Act  of  1891  made  the 
sanitary  authorities  primarily  responsible  for  enforcing 
many  new  provisions.  Those  authorities  were  charged 
with  the  duty  of  securing  the  maintenance  of  the  "  work- 
shops "  in  a  sanitary  condition,  of  preventing  overcrowding 
in  them,  and  of  enforcing  cleanliness,  ventilation,  lime- 
washing,  and  freedom  from  effluvia,  and  securing  the 
provision  of  sufficient   sanitary   accommodation. 

Added  to  this  was  the  sanitary  supervision  of  the  places 
of  "  outworkers."  * 

It  would  appear,  however,  that  only  in  exceptional 
instances  was  any  systematic  attempt  made  in  1892  to  carry 
out  the  new  duties  imposed  by  the  Legislature  upon  the 
Vestries  and  District  Boards. 

In  several  instances  the  Medical  Officers  of  Health  drew 
attention  to  the  impossibility  of  undertaking  workshop 
inspection  with  their  existing  staff.  Thus  the  Medical 
Officer  of  Health  of  Hackney : — 

*'  Inquiry  has  revealed  the  presence  of  something  like 
2,000  workshops  and  dwellings  of  outworkers  which,  under 
this  Act  and  Order,  should  be  inspected  to  ascertain  the 
presence  or  otherwise  of  any  insanitary  condition.  With 
the  present  stajQf  it  is  impossible  that  this  can  be 
attempted." 

*  See  the  Order  made  by  the  Home  Secretary  in  November,  1892,  as  to 
"outworkers." 


374      THE   SANITARY  EVOLUTION 

In  St.  Marylebone  the  Medical  Officer  of  Health  stated, 
in  1894,  that  the  number  of  workshops  and  workplaces 
in  his  parish  amounted  to  3,550.  And  in  1895  he  wrote  : 
"  The  workplaces  are  so  numerous  in  the  parish  that  it  is 
not  practicable  for  them  all  to  be  inspected  regularly  with 
the  present  staff." 

"Increased  duties,"  wrote  the  Medical  Officer  of  Health 
for  Fulham  in  1893,  "  having  been  placed  on  the  sanitary 
staff  by  the  '  Factory  and  Workshop  Act '  of  1891,  relating 
to  outworkers ;  but  with  the  existing  number  of  inspectors 
it  is  not  possible  to  attend  to  them  thoroughly,  so  that  the 
Act  in  Fulham  is  almost  '  a  dead  letter.'  " 

"  In  Ishngton,"  reported  the  Medical  Officer  of  Health  in 
1895,  "  neither  the  factories  nor  workshops  in  the  district, 
nor  the  smoke  nuisances  receive  any  attention  worth 
mentioning,  and  so  far  as  this  district  is  concerned  they 
may  be  said  to  have  been  entirely  neglected. 

"  I  look  upon  the  inspection  of  factories  and  workshops  as 
one  of  the  greatest  necessities  of  the  present  day,  not  only 
from  a  health  point  of  view,  but  also  from  the  social 
aspect." 

The  manifest  solution  of  this  difficulty  was  the  appoint- 
ment of  additional  inspectors,  but  the  local  authorities 
had  a  sort  of  horror  of  such  appointments,  though  by  this 
time  they  must  have  known  that  the  benefit  to  workers  and 
to  the  community  generally  would  have  been  very  great. 

A  report  in  1892  of  the  Medical  Officer  of  Health  of 
St.  G-eorge-the-Martyr  shows  the  grievous  need  there 
was  for  inspection  of  one  very  important  class  of 
workshop : — 

"I  have  inspected  sixty-three  retail  bakehouses  within 
the  parish,  and  found  them  (with  few  exceptions)  to  be 
in  a  filthy  and  unwholesome  state,  dangerous  alike  to 
the  health  of  the  journeyman  baker,  who  makes  the 
bread,  and  to  the  public  who  eat  it.  Twenty-one  were 
completely  underground.  ...  In  times  of  heavy  rainfall 
sewage  forces  itself  through  the  draintraps  of  these  cellars, 
soiling  the  sacks  containing  flour,  and  fouling  the 
atmosphere." 


OF  LONDON  375 

Parliament  again  legislated  about  factories  and  workshops 
in  1895. 

Under  the  Act  a  minimum  space  was  required  in  each 
room  of  a  factory  or  workshop  of  250  cubic  feet  for  each 
person  employed.  For  the  prevention  of  the  infection 
of  clothing,  the  occupier  of  a  factory,  &c.,  was  prohibited 
from  causing  wearing  apparel  to  be  made  or  cleaned 
in  a  dwelling-house  having  an  inmate  suffering  from 
scarlet  fever  or  smallpox.  An  important  step  was  also 
taken  in  extending  the  provisions  of  the  Factory  Acts  to 
laundries,  of  which  there  were  a  great  number  in  London, 
and  where  the  workers  stood  in  great  need  of  improved 
conditions  of  work,  and  of  public  supervision. 

Lamentable  as  were  the  results  of  the  non-protection  of 
the  workers  in  workshops,  still  more  lamentable  and  dis- 
astrous were  they  as  regarded  the  2,310,000  dwellers  in  the 
630,569  tenements  of  less  than  five  rooms.  Up  to  1889 
regulations  under  the  Sanitary  Acts  of  1866  and  1874  had 
been  adopted  in  31  of  the  40  London  sanitary  districts.  In 
only  nine  of  these  was  any  considerable  use  made  of  them. 
Had  these  regulations  been  put  into  force  a  great  amount  of 
overcrowding  would  have  been  prevented  and  the  houses 
kept  in  a  fairly  clean  and  sanitary  condition. 

In  the  whole  of  London,  with  its  547,000  houses,  only 
7,713  tenement-houses  were  on  the  register  in  1897,  of 
which  more  than  a  half  were  in  four  parishes,  namely  :  1,500 
in  Kensington,  1,190  in  "Westminster,  840  in  Hampstead, 
and  610  in  St.  Giles' ;  leaving  3,573  in  the  whole  of  the 
rest  of  London — a  mere  fraction  of  the  tenement-houses  of 
London. 

In  Bethnal  Green  (1894),  "  761  of  the  population  lived  in 
tenements  of  less  than  five  rooms.  No  houses  had  been 
registered." 

In  Lambeth  over  one-half  of  the  population  lived  in  tene- 
ments of  less  than  five  rooms,  and  of  these  nearly  one-third 
lived  under  conditions  of  overcrowding.  There  was  one 
Sanitary  Inspector  to  about  60,000  people.  The  inadequacy 
of  the  staff  had  been  pressed  upon  the  Vestry  by  the  Medical 
Officer  of  Health  from  time  to  time  for  a  number  of  years. 


376       THE  SANITARY  EVOLUTION 

Considerable  ingenuity  was  in  many  cases  exercised  by  the 
opponents  of  the  regulation  of  tenements  in  the  working  of 
the  bye-laws  which  resulted  practically  in  rendering  them 
inoperative.  In  some  cases  all  houses  were  to  be  exempted 
where  the  rent  was  higher  than  certain  specified  weekly 
sums.  The  result  was  that  the  "  owners  "  promply  raised 
the  rent  above  these  sums,  and  so  secured  their  exemption, 
at  the  same  time  getting  an  increased  rent.  In  others,  the 
bye-laws  gave  the  Vestry  power  to  decide  what  houses 
should  be  registered,  and  thus  enabled  the  Vestry  to  evade 
the  necessity  of  registering  any  at  all.  In  others,  notices 
were  to  be  given  to  the  "owner"  before  a  house  was 
registered — the  notice  was  not  sent.  And  so,  in  one  way 
or  another,  the  imperative  "shall"  of  Parliament  was 
evaded  by  the  largest  proportion  of  the  Vestries  and  District 
Boards. 

As  regarded  the  Vestries  and  District  Boards  who  made  a 
show  of  putting  the  regulations  in  force,  the  Medical 
Officers  explained  that,  owing  to  the  inadequacy  of  the  staff 
of  Sanitary  Inspectors,  it  was  "impossible"  to  inspect  the 
houses  regularly. 

In  other  parishes  and  districts  the  number  registered  and 
inspected  was  but  a  fraction  of  the  houses  which  ought  to 
have  been  registered.  In  Bow  (in  Poplar)  where  none  were 
registered,  the  Medical  Officer  of  Health  VTrote  in  1891 :  "  I 
should  say  4,000  houses  require  registration."  In-  St.  Mary, 
Newington  :  "At  least  80  per  cent,  of  the  houses  are  occu- 
pied by  members  of  more  than  one  family."  But  as  yet 
none  were  registered.  And  this  same  Medical  Officer  of 
Health  pointed  out  how  in  his  parish — "  The  indisposition 
that  has  hitherto  been  shown  on  the  part  of  the  Vestry  to 
put  into  force  the  bye-laws  for  houses  let  in  lodgings  has  led 
to  great  license  in  house-farming  and  house-crowding." 

Where  really  put  into  operation  the  regulations  had  an 
excellent  effect.  Thus  the  District  Board  of  St.  Giles' 
said :  "  The  advantage  of  these  regulations  has  been  very 
great." 

And  in  Paddington  the  Medical  Officer  of  Health  stated : 
"  The  work  done  .  .  .  has  had  an  excellent  effect." 


OF   LONDON  377 

Of  some  streets  where  houses  were  registered  (1897-8) — 
"  The  whitewashing  and  cleansing  has  without  doubt 
had  a  good  effect.  The  streets  have  been  freer  from 
infectious  diseases  than  they  have  been  for  several  years 
past." 

The  advantages  of  the  regulations  in  the  administration 
of  the  health  laws  were  time  after  time  pointed  out  and 
insisted  upon  by  many  Medical  Officers  of  Health. 

The  Medical  Officer  of  Health  for  Westminster,  where 
nearly  1,000  houses  were  registered,  wrote  (1899)  : — 

"The  great  advantage  in  legal  procedure  lies  in  the  fact 
that  a  breach  of  them  is  a  finable  offence  with  a  further 
daily  penalty  after  written  notice,  and  is  not  a  nuisance  sub- 
ject to  abatement  within  a  certain  time. 

"If  the  conditions  imposed  by  the  bye-laws  are  carried 
out,  no  doubt  one  of  the  best  methods  for  preventing  over- 
crowding is  thus  achieved." 

The  advantage  of  this  quicker  procedure  was  manifest,  for, 
under  the  other  Public  Health  or  Sanitary  Acts,  the  whole 
process  of  deaUng  with,  or  getting  a  nuisance  abated,  took 
"  a  long  time — a  very  long  time,"  but  the  advantages  did 
not  appeal  to  people  who  did  not  want  to  use  them. 

Thus  there  was  a  most  grievous  neglect  of  duty  on  the 
part  of  the  great  majority  of  the  Vestries  and  District 
Boards,  with  the  inevitable  result  of  the  most  disastrous 
consequences  to  the  working  and  poorer  classes  all  over 
London. 

It  must  have  appeared  strange,  in  view  of  this  glaring 
and  scandalous  neglect  of  duty  by  the  Vestries  in  enforcing 
the  regulations,  that  the  London  County  Council  as  the 
Central  Authority  did  not  use  the  powers  which  they  were 
supposed  to  possess  of  acting  in  the  default  of  the  local  autho- 
rities, or  of  making  representation  to  the  Local  Government 
Board  of  the  neglect  of  those  authorities. 

The  explanation  was,  that  in  the  administration  of  this, 
absolutely  the  most  important  of  all  branches  of  the  housing 
problem  of  London,  the  London  County  Council,  had  been 
left  entirely  out — had  not  even  been  given  a  voice  in  the 
framing  of  the  bye-laws  or  regulations,  and  therefore  had 


378      THE   SANITARY  EVOLUTION 

no  legal  power  to  act.  Eegulations  or  bye-laws,  drafted  by 
the  Local  Government  Board  as  "  models  "  for  adoption  by 
the  local  authorities,  suggested  "  exemptions  "  to  what  Par- 
liament had  directed — though  there  was  not  a  single  word 
in  the  94th  Section  or  in  any  part  of  the  Act  to  justify 
such  a  suggestion — or  suggested  phrases  in  them  which 
actually  placed  the  enforcement  or  non-enforcement  of 
the  Act  in  the  discretion  of  those  authorities,  this,  too, 
though  Parliament  had  made  the  explicit  imperative  enact- 
ment that  these  local  authorities  should  make  and  enforce 
regulations. 

Most  of  the  Vestries  made  bye-laws  under  Section  94  of 
the  Act,  nearly  all  containing  exemption  or  elusive  clauses 
as  suggested ;  some  even  avowedly  reserving  to  themselves 
the  option  of  registering  or  not  registering  houses,  as  they 
thought  fit. 

The  London  County  Council  was  not  in  a  position  to  act 
in  their  default,  as  these  authorities  could  shelter  them- 
selves under  the  option  contained  in  the  terms  of  the 
regulations,  and  a  representation  to  the  Local  Government 
Board  would  have  been  useless,  as  the  same  defence  would 
be  effectively  made  by  the  local  authorities  if  called  to 
account. 

Thus,  the  deliberate  enactment  of  Parliament  was  frus- 
trated ;  the  Act  was  prevented  being  a  remedy  for  over- 
crowding, or  even  a  protection  against  it,  and  except  in  a 
few  parishes  or  districts  where  the  great  advantages  of  the 
Act  were  appreciated,  all  the  dreadful  evils  of  overcrowding 
were  given  free  play,  and  allowed  to  flourish  on  as  gigantic 
a  scale  as  ever. 

The  effects  of  the  inaction  of  the  Vestries  and  District 
Boards  were  unfortunately  not  confined  to  the  moment.  A 
legacy  of  suffering,  of  misery,  and  physical  deterioration 
was  left  to  subsequent  generations.  Once  more  might 
hundreds  of  thousands  of  voices  of  the  victims  and  sufferers 
have  cried  out:  "While  you  remain  inactive,  death  and 
disease  do  not."* 

*  Not  much  interest  appears  to  have  been  taken  in  the  proceed- 
ings of  some  of  the  Vestries.     Thus,  in  1891,  the  Vestry  of  Westminster 


OF  LONDON  379 

A  special  census  of  the  population  of  London  was  taken 
on  March  29,  1896,  which  showed  that  the  popula- 
tion had  increased  to  4,443,018  persons,  being  an  increase 
of  200,900;  and  the  number  of  inhabited  houses  from 
547,120  to  553,119. 

As  years  had  gone  by,  and  the  necessity  and  importance 
of  sanitation  had  become  more  widely  recognised,  and  as 
London  had  grown  in  size  and  increased  in  population,  the 
duties  of  the  Vestries  had  grown  heavier,  and  the  tendency 
of  legislation  was  to  broaden  the  basis  of  their  action. 

The  mileage  of  public  streets  to  be  paved,  lighted,  cleansed, 
and  watered,  had  multiplied  two,  three,  and  four  times  since 
1855  ;  the  number  of  houses  in  many  districts  had  more 
than  doubled ;  the  drainage  work  had  increased  proportion- 
ally ;  the  scavenging  and  removing  of  refuse  also.  Nominal 
duties  had  become  real  ones,  and  new  duties  had  been 
added — the  disinfection  of  infected  houses  and  infected 
clothes,  the  inspection  of  food,  the  working  of  the  Food 
and  Drugs  Act — these,  with  numerous  smaller  matters, 
meant  a  very  considerable  amount  of  work,  expense,  and 
responsibility. 

But  all  these  were  what  one  of  the  Vestries  in  their 
Report  described  as  "  well-worn  grooves  of  familiar  routine." 
In  addition  thereto,  and  now  more  than  ever  of  primary  im- 
portance, was  the  great  duty  of  inspection — inspection  of 
houses,  and  of  rooms  in  houses,  and  of  workshops,  and  often 
the  consequent  proceedings  for  the  abatement  of  nuisances, 
or  the  punishment  of  offenders. 

"  House-to-house  inspection,"  wrote  the  Medical  Officer 
of  Health  for  Islington  in  1893,  "is  the  only  efficient 
remedy  for  extensive  sanitary  evils.  It  is  the  life  and  soul 
of  sanitary  work." 

House-to-house  inspection  of  their  districts  was  the 
most  necessary  of  all  sanitary  work — as  it  was  the  means  by 

complained  of  the  lack  of  public  interest  in  the  record  of  their  proceed- 
ings. "Only  eleven  ratepayers  out  of  8,800  have  purchased  copies 
(price  2d.)  of  the  Reports  of  the  Vestry  in  each  of  the  last  three  years." 
(A  few  years  later  they  reduced  their  Reports  to  a  few  pages.) 

And  in  1896  the  Vestry  of  Kensington  complained  of  the  limited 
demand  for  their  Annual  Report,  though  it  only  cost  2d. 


380       THE   SANITARY  EVOLUTION 

which  most  sanitary  defects  and  malpractices  were  detected 
— but  it  was  the  first  to  be  sacrificed  under  the  increased 
pressure  of  work,  and  the  last  for  which  adequate  provision 
was  made. 

"A  house-to-house  inspection  has  been  attempted  more 
than  once,"  wrote  the  Medical  Officer  of  Health  for  Islington 
in  1893,  "  but  it  has  never  yet  been  brought  to  a  complete 
and  satisfactory  finish." 

In  fact  the  main  breakdown  of  the  Vestry  administration 
in  London  was  their  antipathy  to  inspection,  and  their 
refusal  to  appoint  a  sufficient  number  of  inspectors. 

"  The  subject  of  overcrowding  alone,"  wrote  one  Medical 
Officer  of  Health,  "  if  properly  attended  to,  would  pretty 
well  occupy  the  whole  of  the  time  of  the  present  staff." 

The  complaints  of  the  Medical  Officers  of  Health  were 
frequent  and  insistent  on  the  inadequacy  of  the  inspecto- 
rate. Thus  the  Medical  Officer  of  Health  for  Fulham 
wrote  : — 

"  The  Vestry  must  clearly  understand  that  the  present 
staff  of  Sanitary  Inspectors  is  quite  inadequate  to  properly 
perform  the  duties  devolving  upon  the  Sanitary  Authority. 
There  is  only  one  Sanitary  Inspector  to  every  35,000  inhabi- 
tants. Should  the  Vestry  persist  in  their  refusal  to  employ 
an  adequate  staff,  the  inference  will  be  unavoidable  that 
they  are  unwilling  that  the  Acts — for  the  faithful  adminis- 
tration of  which,  in  the  interests  of  the  public  health,  they 
as  Sanitary  Authority  are  responsible — should  be  properly 
carried  out." 

Interesting  light  is  often  to  be  found  in  the  reports  some- 
times of  the  Vestries,  and  oftener  of  the  Medical  Officers 
of  Health,  upon  various  aspects  of  the  great  housing 
problem. 

Sometimes  a  sentence  enables  so  much  else  to  be  under- 
stood.    Thus,  in  1892,  a  Medical  Officer  of  Health  wrote : — 

"  Many  persons  think  the  Public  Health  Act  an  innova- 
tion on  their  privileges." 

Describing  the  insanitary  condition  of  230  houses  in 
Provost  Street,  Shoreditch,  the  Sanitary  Inspector  wrote 
in  1892  :— 


OF   LONDON  381 

"  The  difficulty  of  dealing  with  these  houses  has  been 
greatly  increased  by  the  circumstance  that  the  leases  will 
expire  in  a  very  few  years.  There  was,  therefore,  a  very 
natural  objection  on  the  part  of  many  of  the  leaseholders  to 
execute  substantial  works,  of  which  the  freeholder  would  in 
a  few  years  reap  the  benefit,  and  without  contributing  any- 
thing to  the  expense  of  the  improvements." 

This  **  very  natural  objection  "  entailed,  of  necessity,  sick- 
ness and  death  upon  a  considerable  number  of  persons. 

The  Vestry  of  St.  Pancras  wrote  in  1893  : — 

"  The  primary  cause  of  houses  and  buildings  becoming 
insanitary  is  the  neglect  of  freeholders  to  compel  lessees 
to  comply  with  the  terms  and  conditions  of  their  leases.  If 
the  Vestry  were  empowered  (where  freeholders  are  negli- 
gent) to  compel  freeholders  to  cause  lessees  to  carry  into 
effect  the  covenants  of  the  leases,  the  houses  inhabited  by 
the  poorer  classes  would  not  become  so  wretchedly  dilapi- 
dated and  a  scandal,  but  might  be  maintained  in  a  fairly 
habitable  condition." 

The  Medical  Officer  of  Health  forBethnal  Green  exonerated 
some  property  owners,  whilst  fixing  the  blame  on  others. 

"  .  .  .  As  a  rule  it  is  the  professional  insanitary  property 
owner  who  has  to^be  summoned  time  after  time,  and  who  ex- 
hausts every  technicality  and  raises  every  possible  objection, 
well  knowing  that  in  the  usual  way  only  an  order  costing  some 
few  shillings  will  be  made  against  him." 

Others,  however,  went  further.  The  Medical  Officer  of 
Health  for  Islington  wrote  in  1893  : — 

**  Since  1891  there  has  been  a  steady  forward  movement, 
and  .  .  .  one  now  constantly  hears  of  the  persecution  of  the 
'  poor  property  owner.' 

"  That  owner  who  for  long  years  had  everything  his  own 
way,  and  who  did  as  little  as  he  could  to  make  things  healthy 
for  his  tenants,  knowing  well  that  there  were  plenty  of  per- 
sons ready  to  occupy  any  or  every  house.  Property  has 
rights,  but  so  has  flesh  and  blood ;  and  if  it  be  right  that 
property  should  be  protected  from  unnecessary  exactions,  it 
is  surely  righteous  that  the  health  and  lives  of  human  beings 
should  be  safeguarded  in  every  way." 


382       THE  SANITARY   EVOLUTION 

And  in  the  following  year,  writing  about  some  insanitary 
bakehouses,  he  said :  "  It  has  always  seemed  to  me  a  very 
absurd  argument  that  because  a  place  has  been  allowed  to 
be  occupied  for  a  long  series  of  years  to  the  detriment  of  the 
health  of  the  people  working  therein  that  therefore  it  must 
not  be  now  abolished. 

"If  those  insanitary  places  have  been  occupied  for  such  a 
long  time,  surely  they  have  more  than  recouped  their  owners 
for  the  money  that  has  been  originally  spent  on  their 
erection  ?  " 

The  Medical  Officer  of  Health  for  St.  James',  after  twenty- 
five  years'  work  as  Medical  Officer  of  Health,  declared  in 
1898  :— 

"  The  only  practical  course  is  to  saddle  the  landlord  with 
full  responsibility  for  the  neglect  or  misconduct  of  the 
tenants  whom  he  harbours,  at  large  rents,  for  his  own 
profit." 

In  1894  Parliament  passed  "  The  Local  Government  (Eng- 
land and  Wales)  Act,"  which  included  London  in  its  scope, 
and  which  introduced  great  changes  as  to  the  electorate,  the 
mode  of  election,  and  the  qualification  of  vestrymen. 

A  new  electorate  on  almost  the  widest  basis  was 
created,  all  persons,  male  or  female,  on  the  Parliamentary 
or  County  Council  Eegister,  including  lodgers  and  service 
voters,  and  married  women,  who  were  themselves  tenants 
of  property,  being  made  parochial  electors ;  and  the  Vestry 
was  to  be  elected  under  the  provisions  of  the  Ballot  Act 
of  1872. 

Thus  the  scandals  hitherto  associated  with  Vestry  elections 
were  for  the  future  obviated,  and  greater  publicity — that 
safeguard  of  all  public  bodies — was  assured. 

Additional  powers  were  also  obtainable  under  the  Act  by 
the  Vestries  on  application  to  the  Local  Government  Board, 
who  could  transfer  to  the  Vestry  the  powers  and  properties 
of  the  Library  Commissioners,  the  Baths  Commissioners, 
and  the  Burial  Board;  the  power  of  appointing  the  Over- 
seers of  the  Poor,  and  some  other  powers  and  duties  of  more 
or  less  importance,  possessed  orpossessable  by  Parish  Councils. 
The  elections  were  held  on  December  15,  1894. 


OF  LONDON  383 

The  new  Vestries,  however,  did  not  mend  the  ways  of 
their  predecessors  as  regarded  "  inspection." 

Of  Bethnal  Green  the  Chief  Sanitary  Inspector  said 
(1897) :  "  With  the  existing  staff  (five  Inspectors)  and  having 
regard  to  other  work,  it  would  take  five  years  to  visit  all  the 
houses  in  the  parish — about  17,000." 

The  Medical  Officer  of  Health  for  Kensington  wrote 
(1898) :  *'  The  staff  is  quite  inadequate  for  the  discharge 
of  the  duties  devolving  upon  your  Vestry  as  Sanitary 
Authority." 

And  the  Medical  Officer  of  Health  for  Hammersmith  wrote 
in  1899  :  "  The  house-to-house  inspection  of  the  district  is 
now  nearly  completed,  and  has  taken  six  years  to  accom- 
plish. The  result  of  the  inspection  is  in  the  highest  degree 
satisfactory  .  .  .  nevertheless  it  cannot  be  contended  that 
inspecting  the  district  once  in  six  years  is  properly  carrying 
out  the  1st  Section  of  the  Public  Health  (London)  Act, 
1891." 

A  series  of  investigations  was  made  by  the  Medical  Officer 
of  Health  of  the  London  County  Council,  or  by  his  assistant, 
into  the  sanitary  condition  of  various  parishes  or  dis- 
tricts, and  an  instructive  light  thrown  upon  the  adminis- 
tration of  their  affairs  by  their  respective  local  governing 
authorities. 

Almost  uniformly,  so  far  as  they  were  concerned,  it  was 
found  that  bye-laws  as  to  houses  let  in  lodgings  were  not 
enforced,  and  no,  or  practically  no  inspection  of  workshops, 
of  which  there  were  thousands,  nor  of  "outworkers  "  had 
been  carried  out,  and  that  the  sanitary  staff  was  quite 
inadequate  for  the  work. 

Though  much  was  thus  most  unsatisfactory,  yet  in 
many  other  important  matters  which  vitally  affected  the 
public  health,  considerable  progress  was  being  made. 

In  the  matter  of  water  supply  a  steady  but  slow  improve- 
ment had,  under  public  pressure,  taken  place.  In  1892  a 
Koyal  Commission  was  appointed  to  inquire  as  to  whether 
the  existing  sources  of  supply  were  adequate,  and  it  reported 
in  the  following  year. 

"We  are  strongly  of  opinion,"  they  said,  "that  the  water  as 


384       THE  SANITARY  EVOLUTION 

supplied  to  the  consumer  in  London  is  of  a  very  high  standard 
of  excellence  and  of  purity,  and  that  it  is  suitable  in  quality 
for  all  household  purposes.  "We  are  well  aware  that  a  certain 
prejudice  exists  against  the  use  of  drinking  water  derived 
from  the  Thames  and  the  Lea,  because  these  rivers  are 
liable  to  pollution,  however  perfect  the  subsequent  purifica- 
tion by  natural  or  artificial  means  may  be ;  but  having 
regard  to  the  experience  of  London  during  the  last  thirty 
years,  and  to  the  evidence  given  us  on  the  subject,  we  do  not 
believe  that  any  danger  exists  of  the  spread  of  disease  by  the 
use  of  this  water,  provided  that  there  is  adequate  storage, 
and  that  the  water  is  efficiently  filtered  before  delivery  to 
the  consumers." 

This  statement  was  to  a  certain  extent  satisfactory,  but 
the  fact  remained  that  both  the  Thames  and  Lea  still 
received  sewage  effluents  above  the  intakes,  and  consider- 
able pollution  from  other  causes ;  and  that  diseases  might 
still  be  water-borne  and  water-distributed  by  them.  The 
thoroughness  of  the  filtration  also  was  often  open  to  doubt. 

Improvement  was  gradually  being  effected  in  the  system 
of  removal  or  disposal  of  filth  and  refuse  of  all  sorts  and 
kinds  ;  the  sweepings  of  the  streets,  the  refuse  from  houses. 
According  to  the  general  practice  of  the  local  authorities  the 
great  bulk  of  this  stuff  was  first  brought  to  yards  or  places, 
the  property  of  the  authorities,  and  there  sorted  or  sifted 
and  sent  down  the  river  or  along  the  canals  in  barges,  or 
sometimes  even  by  rail  to  the  country.  But  the  system  was 
costly  and  insanitary  and  inefficient,  and  as  was  pointed  out 
— "  it  could  not  be  deemed  satisfactory  when  large  metro- 
politan districts  inflict  their  filth  upon  smaller  communities 
in  urban  districts." 

A  system  of  destroying  much  of  this  filth  by  fire  had  been 
devised,  and  gradually  was  adopted  by  the  local  authorities. 
It  was  found  that  with  a  properly  constructed  and  efficient 
destructor  no  nuisance  need  result,  and  this  method  of  dis- 
posing of  house  refuse  was  much  more  desirable  from  a 
sanitary  point  of  view  than  that  usually  adopted  by  London 
Sanitary  Authorities. 

A  certain  number  of  local  authorities  adopted  this  method 


OF  LONDON  385 

to  the  great  advantage  of  the  community,  and  though  there 
is  still  much  to  be  done  in  this  direction,  the  change,  so  far 
as  it  has  gone,  has  undoubtedly  minimised  a  great  evil. 

Both  numerous  and  various  are  the  measures  which  have 
to  be  taken  for  the  protection  of  the  public  from  disease. 
One  of  the  most  essential  of  these  was  disinfection — the 
disinfection  of  rooms  where  there  had  been  infectious 
or  contagious  disease,  and  the  disinfection  or  destruction 
of  clothing  or  articles  used  by  the  person  suffering  from 
the  disease.  The  process  of  disinfection  originally  was  of  the 
most  primitive  character  and  doubtful  efficacy,  but  the 
progress  of  science  had  elaborated  really  effective  methods. 

In  1866  the  local  authorities  had  been  given  power  to 
provide  a  proper  place  with  all  necessary  apparatus,  &c., 
for  the  disinfection  of  infected  clothing,  &c.,  free  of  charge, 
and  to  give  compensation  for  articles  destroyed.  Thus  every 
inducement  was  given  to  the  public  to  get  infected  articles 
disinfected.  But  many  years  were  to  pass  before  provision 
by  the  Vestries  was  extensively  made. 

By  the  Public  Health  London  Act,  1891,  this  provision 
was  made  imperative  on  the  local  authorities. 

Disinfection  by  steam  was  considered  practically  the  only 
efficient  system.  By  1895  twenty-four  sanitary  authorities 
had  provided  themselves  with  this  apparatus,  six  with  an 
apparatus  whereby  disinfection  was  effected  by  dry  heat,  and 
eight  had  arranged  with  a  contractor. 

When  it  is  a  fact  that  a  few  infected  rags  could  let  loose 
disease  of  the  worst  type  upon  a  community,  the  advantages 
to  the  public  of  the  general  practice  of  disinfection  were 
incalculable.  And  in  London  the  advantages  were  specially 
great. 

In  almost  every  district  hundreds  of  houses  were  dis- 
infected every  year,  and  thousands — even  tens  of  thousands 
— of  articles. 

The  system  of  the  compulsory  notification  of  infectious 
diseases  facilitated  greatly  the  work  of  disinfection,  for  by 
informing  the  authorities  where  cases  of  such  disease 
occurred  it  enabled  them  to  scotch  disease  in  its  breeding- 
places,  and  so  it  was  of  the  greatest  benefit  to  the  com- 

26 


386       THE   SANITARY  EVOLUTION 

munity.    How  great  may  be  gathered  from  the  following 
figures. 

The  number  of  cases  of  Infectious  Diseases  in  London 
notified  under  the  Act  of  1889  were: — 


29,795 

in  1890 

46,074 

„   1892 

67,485 

„   1893 

49,699 

„   1896 

42,344 

„   1899 

Of  those  in 

1893  :— 

36,901 

were  cases 

of  Scarlet  Fever 

3,633 

))          )) 

Enteric     ,, 

22 

>)          >> 

Typhus 

13,026 

)>          )) 

Diphtheria 

2,813 

>)          >) 

Smallpox 

Great  work  was  being  done  in  the  prevention  of  the 
spread  of  infectious  disease  in  London  by  the  Metropolitan 
Asylums  Board,  in  whose  hospitals  thousands  of  persons 
suffering  from  such  disease  were  isolated. 

Dr.  G.  Buchanan,  Chief  Medical  Officer  to  the  Local 
Government  Board,  wrote  in  1892: — 

"In  regard  to  some  infectious  cases,  notably  those  of 
scarlet  fever  and  diphtheria,  there  are  no  means  at  all  to 
be  compared  to  isolation  in  hospital  for  preventing  the 
spread  of  a  limited  number  of  cases  into  a  formidable 
epidemic. 

"  And  the  wonderful  and  repeated  checks  to  small  out- 
breaks of  smallpox  in  the  metropolis  in  the  course  of  the 
past  seven  years  bears  overwhelming  evidence  to  the  truth 
of  this  dictum." 

As  the  population  of  the  metropolis  increased  in  density 
it  became  more  and  more  necessary  in  the  interests  of  the 
people  as  a  whole  to  make  proper  and  sufficient  provision 
for  the  prompt  isolation  of  those  of  its  inhabitants  who 
might  be  smitten  with  infectious  disorders. 

Home  isolation  in  London  was  difficult  even  under  the 
best  circumstances,  but  in  the  smaller  tenements  it  was 
impossible. 

"  The  removal  to  hospital  of  so  many  of  the  cases  (of 


OF  LONDON  387 

scarlet  fever)  is  a  vast  blessing  to  this  neighbourhood," 
wrote  the  Medical  Officer  for  St.  Mary,  Newington,  in 
1897. 

For  some  time  a  growing  tendency  on  the  part  of  the 
public  to  accept  hospital  treatment  for  infectious  cases  had 
been  evinced. 

"  The  *  depauperisation '  of  the  Hospitals  had  led  to  a 
great  increase  in  the  admissions,  so  that  the  public  are  on 
the  whole  very  willing  to  take  advantage  of  the  facilities 
offered  for  having  their  infectious  sick  cared  for  in  hospital, 
whereby  the  other  members  of  the  patient's  family  can 
follow  their  avocations  without  hindrance  and  without  risk 
to  the  public  generally." 

The  Chief  Sanitary  Inspector  for  Bethnal  Green  gives 
information  as  to  the  numbers  who  from  his  parish  availed 
themselves  of  the  hospitals. 

"  A  satisfactory  feature,  and  of  the  greatest  assistance  in 
dealing  with  infectious  disease,  is  the  large  number  of 
patients  now  sent  to  hospital.  This  year  nearly  two-thirds 
of  the  cases  notified  were  removed.  The  importance  of  this 
either  to  the  patients  themselves  or  to  the  public  can  hardly 
be  overestimated." 

By  the  Public  Health  London  Act,  1891,  every  inhabitant 
of  London  suffering  from  any  dangerous  infectious  disease 
was  entitled  to  free  treatment  at  one  of  these  hospitals.* 
On  receipt  of  notice  an  ambulance  was  at  once  sent  for  his 
removal. 

Year  by  year  greater  use  was  made  of  the  Board's 
hospitals,  and  at  times  there  was  not  sufficient  room  in 
the  Metropolitan  Asylums  hospitals  to  receive  all  the  cases. 
In  1892  the  total  number  of  patients  received  amounted  to 
over  13,000,  there  being  at  one  time  4,389  patients  suffering 
from  all  classes  of  fever  or  diphtheria  receiving  treatment  in 
the  hospitals,  whilst  in  1893  the  admissions  amounted  to 
20,316. 

By  1895  the  Board  had  eight  fever  hospitals,  including 
diphtheria,  with  3,384  beds ;  three  ships  for  smallpox  cases 

*  See  3rd  Eeport  from  Select  Committee  of  the  House  of  Lords  on 
Metropolitan  Hospitals,  1891. 


388      THE   SANITARY  EVOLUTION 

with  300  beds ;  and  a  large  hospital  for  convalescents  with 
1,200  beds.  By  1898  the  accommodation  had  reached  the 
large  total  of  about  6,000. 

The  Chairman  of  the  Metropolitan  Asylums  Board, 
reviewing  in  1897  the  thirty  years'  work  of  the  Board, 
said : — 

"Whilst,  during  the  first  twenty  years  of  the  Board's 
experience,  London  was  again  and  again  visited  with 
epidemics  of  smallpox,  during  the  past  seven  years  it 
has,  thanks  to  the  action  of  the  managers  in  having 
removed  to  and  isolated  at  Long  Eeach  all  cases  of  the 
disease,  been  practically  non-existent  as  a  health  disturbing 
factor. 

"  The  percentage  mortality  of  smallpox  cases  treated  by 
the  Board  decreased  from  20'81  in  1871  to  4*0  in  1896,  and 
the  annual  mortality  from  2"42  to  practically  zero." 

The  rate  of  death  from  diphtheria  also  showed  a  continuous 
fall,  and  this  fall  had  been  coincident  with  the  introduction 
and  increasing  use  of  the  anti-toxic  serum  treatment  of  the 
disease. 

A  valuable  criticism  on  the  existing  machinery  for  the 
sanitary  government  of  London  was  given  in  a  report  of 
the  Metropolitan  Asylums  Board  Statistical  Committee  in 
June,  1892  :— 

"Although  London  possesses  an  ambulance  service  and 
a  system  of  hospitals  admittedly  unrivalled,  yet  it  has  no 
central  authority  charged  with  the  duties  of  tracing  out  an 
outbreak  of  this  infectious  disease  (smallpox),  and  of  taking 
concerted  action  towards  stamping  it  out  by  measures  of 
disinfection  and  vaccination  and  re-vaccination. 

"  These  matters  still  remain  in  the  hands  partly  of  the  41 
local  sanitary  authorities,  partly  of  the  Local  Government 
Board,  and  partly  of  the  London  County  Council. 

"  Clearly  the  present  arrangements  are  not  only  cumbrous 
and  incapable  of  that  rapid  action  essential  to  success  in 
dealing  with  infectious  disease,  but  they  are  also  excessively 
expensive." 

In  connection  with  hospital  accommodation  there  were 
two  other  factors  in  the  sanitary  evolution  of  London.     One 


OF  LONDON  389 

of  these  was  the  provision  made  by  the  Poor  Law  for  the 
treatment  and  care  of  the  sick  poor.* 

Previous  to  1867  the  accommodation  provided  by  the  Poor 
Law  for  the  sick  was  in  the  sick  wards  of  the  workhouses. 
The  Act  of  that  year,  which  had  established  the  Metropolitan 
Asylums  Board,  laid  the  basis  for  the  removal  to  separate 
hospitals  of  paupers  suffering  from  the  worst  forms  of 
infectious  disease.  The  same  Act  authorised  the  building 
and  establishment  of  Poor  Law  infirmaries,  thus  removing 
most  of  the  sick  from  the  workhouse  wards,  giving  them 
better  treatment  and  better  prospect  of  recovery. 

In  1892  the  number  of  new  infirmaries  was  24,  containing 
12,445  beds;  but  a  large  proportion  of  the  sick  were  still 
kept  in  the  workhouses,  the  returns  for  1890  showing  about 
4,000  occupied  beds  in  them. 

And,  in  addition  to  these  institutions,  there  were  Poor 
Law  dispensaries.  The  establishment  of  these  dated  from 
1870,  and  by  1890  there  were  44  of  them.  The  immense 
amount  of  work  they  did  is  shown  by  the  following  figures : 
"In  1890  nearly  120,000  orders  were  given  to  Medical 
Officers  for  attendance  on  patients,  53,572  being  seen  at 
their  own  homes,  and  59,149  at  the  dispensaries.  It  is 
calculated  that  there  are  about  eight  attendances  on  each 
order.  Favourable  opinions  were  expressed  as  to  the  quality 
of  the  treatment  afforded  at  them." 

There  is  no  means  of  even  forming  an  estimate  of  the 
results  of  these  great  remedial  agencies,  but  that  they  were 
an  immense  advance  on  previous  arrangements  for  the 
treatment  of  the  sick  poor  is  a  well-established  fact. 

The  Lords  Select  Committee  reported  that :  — 

"  The  evidence  on  the  whole  appears  to  indicate  a  general 
recognition  of  the  high  standard  of  efficiency  attained  by  the 
best  of  the  new  infirmaries. 

*•  The  poor  do  not  generally  regard  the  infirmary  as  they 
do  the  workhouse;  they  look  upon  it  rather  as  a  State- 
supported  hospital;  they  come  to  the  infirmary,  are  cared 


*  See  the  Report  of  Select  Committee  of  House  of  Lords  on  Hospitals, 
P.P.  1892,  vol.  xiii. 


390       THE   SANITARY  EVOLUTION 

for,  cured,  and  go  out  again  without  feeling  that  they  are 
tainted  with  pauperism." 

The  other  great  factor  in  the  sanitary  evolution  of 
London  was  the  group  of  great  hospitals — general  and 
special — supported,  not  by  the  State  nor  by  aid  from  the 
local  rates,  but  by  the  charitable  public,  and  governed  and 
managed  and  worked  not  by  officials,  paid  either  by  the 
central  or  local  authorities,  but  by  men — lay  and  medical — 
who,  from  the  highest  and  most  public-spirited  motives, 
devoted  themselves  to  this  responsible  work. 

The  general  hospitals  in  1890  numbered  nineteen — some 
of  them  great  institutions,  such  as  St.  Bartholomew's,  St. 
Thomas's,  Guy's,  the  London  Hospital ;  and  the  number  of 
special  hospitals — many  of  them  small — was  stated  to  be 
67  in  1890. 

"The  total  number  of  beds  in  the  general  and  special 
hospitals  in  London  combined  was  stated  by  Dr.  Steele  to 
be  8,500,  of  which  6,500  are  continually  employed.  But 
according  to  Mr.  Burdett— 8,094  and  6,143." 

**  The  vast  numbers  of  persons  who  are  treated  in  out- 
patients' departments  of  hospitals,  the  number  treated  at 
the  eleven  hospitals  with  schools,  were  estimated  by  one 
witness  at  over  half  a  million." 

Here,  again,  no  precise  estimate  can  be  formed  of  the  part 
these  great  institutions  have  taken  in  the  sanitary  evolution 
of  London.  That  their  part  has  been  a  really  great  one  is 
evident  without  figm-es — proved  not  only  by  the  millions 
restored  to  health  and  capable  citizenship,  but  even  more 
by  their  adopting  and  reducing  to  practice,  and  placing 
within  the  reach  of  the  whole  community,  the  vast  benefits 
following  the  great  scientific  discoveries  of  recent  times. 

Among  the  many  causes  of  insanitation,  and  all  its  miser- 
able accompaniments,  one  of  the  most  hopeless  and  most 
difficult  to  deal  with  has  always  been  intemperance  or 
"  drink."  Statistics  give  no  means  of  estimating  its  dis- 
astrous consequences,  but  these  consequences  always  have 
been,  and  still  are,  of  the  most  deplorable  kind.  The 
overcrowded  dwellings  and  bad  sanitary  arrangements  con- 
stantly tended  to  increase  the  habit  of  intemperance,  and 


OF  LONDON  391 

the  moral  degradation  caused  by  drink  made  people  in- 
different to  their  housing,  and  lead  to  the  poverty  which 
increased  overcrowding  and  insanitation. 

In  London  the  facilities  for  obtaining  drink  are  practically 
unlimited.  In  the  evidence  given  before  the  Boyal  Com- 
mission on  Liquor  Licensing  Laws,  which  was  appointed  in 
1896,  it  was  stated  that — 

**  In  Soho  District,  in  an  area  of  a  quarter  of  a  square  mile, 
there  were  1950  inhabited  houses  and  116  public-houses. 
In  another  district,  a  little  over  half  a  square  mile  in  extent, 
there  were  259  public-houses  (excluding  restaurants  and 
private  hotels)." 

Down  one  mile  of  Whitechapel  Koad  there  were  45  public- 
houses. 

"The  streets  branching  off,  the  hinterland,  are  also 
thickly  supplied ;   some  exactly  opposite  each  other." 

"In  one  street  in  St.  George-in-the-East  so  crowded  are 
the  public-houses  that  there  are  27  licensed  houses  out  of 
215  houses." 

And  these  facilities  are  intensified  by  the  great  number  of 
hours  during  the  day  in  which  licensed  houses  keep  their 
doors  open  to  all  comers. 

Parliament  has  done  but  little  to  mitigate  this  terrible 
evil.     Happily,  however,  other  influences  are  at  work. 

The  Royal  Commissioners  in  their  Eeport  in  1899  said  : — 

"  Most  persons  who  have  studied  the  question  are  of 
opinion  that  actual  drunkenness  has  materially  diminished 
in  all  classes  of  society  in  the  last  twenty-five  or  thirty  years. 
Many  causes  have  contributed  to  this.  The  zealous  labour 
of  countless  workers  in  the  temperance  cause  counts  for 
much.  Education  has  opened  avenues  to  innumerable 
studies  which  interest  the  rising  generation.  The  taste  for 
reading  has  multiplied  manyfold  within  a  comparatively 
brief  period.  The  passion  for  games  and  athletics,  which 
has  been  so  remarkably  stimulated  during  the  past  quarter 
of  a  century,  has  served  as  a  powerful  rival  to  'boozing,' 
which  was  at  one  time  almost  the  only  excitement  open  to 
working  men."  And  then  followed  this  weighty  statement : 
"  Yet  it  is  undeniable  that  a  gigantic  evil  remains  to  be 


392       THE   SANITARY  EVOLUTION 

remedied,  and  hardly  any  sacrifice  would  be  too  great 
which  would  result  in  a  marked  diminution  of  this  national 
degradation." 

And  the  Chairman  of  the  Commission  (Viscount  Peel), 
the  Archbishop  of  Canterbury,  and  seven  Commissioners  in 
a  Minority  Eeport  stated  that — 

"  The  broad  facts  remain  unchallenged  of  the  prevalence 
of  the  evil  arising  from  drink." 

That  drink  and  insanitary  housing  constitute  a  vicious 
circle  should  by  no  means  deter  the  most  vigorous  efforts 
being  continued  to  improve  the  conditions  of  housing  and 
to  raise  the  standard  of  the  public  health. 

There  was  widespread  testimony  through  the  latter  half 
of  the  decade  that  the  public  health  in  London  was  im- 
proving. Thus  the  Medical  Officer  of  Health  for  the  Bow 
District  in  Poplar  wrote  in  1895:  "We  have  only  to 
remember  what  London  used  to  be,  and  consolation  can  be 
found  in  the  comparison.  Epidemics  are  not  so  frequent, 
disease  is  not  so  virulent,  and  those  attacked  stand  greater 
chances  of  recovery  through  better  and  more  skilful 
treatment." 

And  the  Medical  Officer  of  Health  for  Paddington  in 
1896 :  "  There  has  been  a  steady  diminution  in  water- 
borne  disease  since  efficiently-filtered  Thames  water  has 
been  substituted  for  the  numerous  wells  and  pumps  of 
former  days." 

The  Medical  Officer  of  Health  for  the  Strand  reported 
in  1897 :  "  The  Strand  District  (as  to  health)  compares 
favourably  with  other  years.  The  result  of  your  labours  is 
a  steady  improvement  in  the  health  of  the  inhabitants." 

And  the  Medical  Officer  of  Health  for  Islington  in  1897 
reported  the  death-rate  as  15*80 — the  lowest  since  registra- 
tion was  introduced  in  1837. 

In  Whitechapel  "  the  policy  of  your  Board  has  resulted  in 
a  considerable  saving  of  human  life."  The  death-rate  for 
the  district  in  1879  was  26-0  per  1,000,  and  in  1899  it  was 
193  per  1,000. 

In  Battersea  the  death-rate  was  26*8  in  1871,  and  17'6  in 
1901. 


OF  LONDON  393 

But  infantile  mortality  did  not  show  a  similar  rate  of 
improvement.  In  many  parishes  there  was  a  decided  im- 
provement. In  many,  however,  infantile  mortality  remained 
at  a  very  high  rate. 

In  Bethnal  Green,  in  1893,  nearly  half  the  total  deaths 
were  of  children  under  five  years  of  age — a  figure  which 
drew  from  the  Medical  Officer  of  Health  the  remark : 
"  The  ignorance  of  women  of  the  working  classes  on  the 
subject  of  infant  feeding  is  colossal."  In  1896  it  was  51*5 
per  cent.,  and  in  1898  it  was  49*7  per  cent. 

In  Poplar  the  Medical  Officer  of  Health  wrote,  in  1895 : 
"  I  think  it  my  duty  to  point  out  the  terribly  high  rate  of 
infant  mortality.  ..." 


In  Of  1,000  Births  in  1895  Died  under  1  Year. 

Bow 179 

Shoreditch      199 

St.  George's-in-the-East      196 

Limehouse 202 


"It  is  an  awful  state  of  affairs  that  so  many  young 
children  die  every  year." 

In  Shoreditch,  in  1896,  49*1  per  cent,  of  the  total  deaths 
were  of  children  under  five  ;  in  Islington,  in  1896,  42*4  per 
cent. ;  in  Hackney,  in  1898,  40'9  per  cent. ;  in  Fulham,  in 
1896,  51  per  cent. 

On  the  south  side  of  the  river — in  St.  George-the-Martyr, 
in  1894,  it  was  58  per  cent,  of  the  total  deaths ;  in  St.  Olave, 
Southwark,  48'6  per  cent,  in  1896. 

A  most  hopeful  sign  was  the  greater  public  interest  taken 
in  matters  pertaining  to  the  public  health. 

The  Medical  Officer  of  Health  for  Islington  wrote  in 
1892  :— 

"  With  the  advance  of  education  the  public  and  Parlia- 
ment appreciate  the  importance  of  more  and  more  safe- 
guarding the  public  health." 

In  1895 :— 

"  They  (middle  class)  will  not  tolerate  the  sanitation  of 
a  few  years  ago ;  indeed,  they  expect  that  the  houses  they 
live  in  will  at  least  be  rendered  safe  against  the  entrance  of 


394      THE   SANITARY  EVOLUTION 

sewer  gas,  and  themselves  safeguarded  against  infectious 
disease." 

And  the  Medical  Officer  of  Health  for  the  "  City  "  in 
1894  :— 

"  Attention  has  been  more  particularly  directed  to 
premises  and  dwellings  of  the  better  class,  the  occupants 
of  which  are  becoming  more  and  more  exacting  owing  to  the 
increased  knowledge  acquired  by  the  public  on  all  sanitary 
questions.  Some  of  these  premises  are  of  great  size  and 
employ  many  hundreds  of  persons,  and  many  enormous 
insurance,  banking,  and  gigantic  commercial  establishments." 

And  that  there  is  a  community  of  interest  in  a  healthy 
London  was  becoming  more  widely  realised.  That  the  fact 
should  have  taken  so  long  to  be  grasped  is  extraordinary  as 
it  was  so  manifest  a  one.  Over  and  over  again  it  had  been 
proved  that  disease  was  not  restrained  by  the  paper  boun- 
daries of  parishes,  and  that  once  set  alight  anywhere  no 
limit  could  be  put  to  its  widespread  devastations.  An  un- 
healthy area  in  any  part  of  the  metropolis  constituted  a 
danger  to  the  whole.  Nor  was  disease  a  respecter  of  classes. 
All  were  interested  in  keeping  it  away. 

And,  after  many  painful  lessons,  people  were  realising 
much  more  than  formerly  that  disease  was  a  most  costly 
infliction.  The  Medical  Officer  of  Health  for  St.  James', 
Westminster,  in  his  report  for  1893,  set  out  the  business 
aspect  of  it  : — 

"The  position  of  St.  James',  as  the  shopping  centre  for 
the  best  retail  trade  of  the  West-end  of  London,  makes  the 
district  more  and  more  a  city  of  luxurious  shops,  hotels, 
clubs,  and  lodging-houses.  Increasing  facilities  for  travel 
to  the  suburbs,  and  the  increasing  value  of  premises,  neces- 
sitate its  utilisation  for  business  purposes  during  the  day, 
and  its  comparative  desertion  at  night,  ...  Its  resident 
population  of  25,000  persons  is  therefore  an  inadequate 
exponent  of  the  activity  of  its  daily  life,  of  the  importance  of 
its  retail  trade,  and  of  the  necessity  for  active  sanitation. 
An  outbreak  of  smallpox  or  of  cholera  would  at  once  so 
damage  the  trade  of  the  district  as  to  inflict  upon  its 
ratepayers  a  thousand  times  the  cost  which  is  now  incurred 


OF  LONDON  395 

by  their  preventive  sanitary  service,  and  by  the  prompt 
removal  of  infectious  cases  to  suburban  hospitals  as  is  novy 
done." 

But  that  was  only  a  single  and  a  limited  case. 

The  industrial  classes  realised  to  a  greater  extent  than 
ever  before  the  disastrous  results  to  themselves  and  their 
families  of  sickness  and  ill-health ;  the  prolonged  suffering, 
the  loss  of  work  and  wages,  the  ensuing  hardships.  And  it 
was  upon  them  more  than  on  others  that  the  effects  of 
disease  fell  most  heavily. 

In  most  matters  the  interests  of  the  various  parts  of 
London,  and  of  the  various  classes,  are  one  and  the  same, 
but  in  none  to  anything  like  the  same  extent  as  in  the  vital 
matter  of  public  health.     Here  they  are  one  and  indivisible. 

But  neither  Parliament  nor  the  Government  had  got  so 
far  as  to  recognise  that  yet,  and  London — the  great  metro- 
polis— with  its  four-and-a-half  millions  of  people,  was  left 
for  its  protection  against  disease  to  a  number  of  semi-inde- 
pendent local  sanitary  authorities  who  had  no  authority 
beyond  their  own  area,  and  who  could  take  no  action  for  the 
safety  of  London  as  a  whole. 

One  thing  was  absolutely  certain — and  that  was  that  the 
civic  life  of  London  had  within  the  decade  been  lifted  to 
altogether  a  higher  plane.  The  publicity  of  the  proceedings 
of  the  central  representative  authority — whether  of  its 
meetings  in  the  Council  Chamber,  or  of  its  constant  applica- 
tions to  Parliament  for  legislation  embodying  far-reaching 
civic  reforms  in  London — the  triennial  elections,  when  the 
area  of  discussion  was  shifted  from  the  Council  Chamber  to 
the  constituencies,  quickened  the  interest  and  awoke  the 
dormant  masses  of  the  people  to  the  importance  of  civic 
administration  and  of  civic  laws. 

In  this  remarkable  change  the  subject  of  the  public  health 
strode  to  the  front.  Men  began  to  realise  how  it  entered 
into  every  branch  or  part  of  their  own  lives  and  of  their 
families,  how  its  ramifications  invaded  every  part  of  their 
existence,  how  much  their  welfare  and  comfort  and  even 
their  existence  depended  upon  it.  And  the  people  had  a 
great  load  lifted  off  them — the  load  of  despair  begotten  by 


396      THE  SANITARY   EVOLUTION 

the  hopelessness  of  any  amelioration  of  the  conditions  of 
life  which  so  long  had  weighed  them  down.  They  felt  now 
that  there  was  some  one  to  whom  they  could  complain, 
some  public  authority  who  would  see  that  things  would  be 
righted,  if  they  could  be  righted,  and  hope  was  born  in 
their  lives. 

In  1899  another  change  was  made  in  the  system  of  local 
government  in  London. 

The  Act  of  1888,  while  dealing  with  the  central  govern- 
ment of  London,  had  practically  not  touched  the  local 
areas.  The  work  was  felt  to  be  incomplete,  and  in  1893 
Commissioners  were  appointed  "to  consider  the  proper 
conditions  under  which  the  amalgamation  of  the  City  and 
the  County  of  London  can  be  effected,  and  to  make  specific 
and  practical  proposals  for  that  purpose." 

They  reported  in  August,  1894.  Their  general  conclusion 
was  contained  in  the  following  paragraph.* 

"  A  consideration  of  the  evidence  we  have  received  con- 
firms the  opinion  suggested  by  the  course  of  previous 
inquiries  and  of  legislation,  or,  in  other  words,  by  the  historic 
development  of  the  metropolis,  that  the  government  of 
London  must  be  entrusted  to  one  body,  exercising  certain 
functions  throughout  all  the  areas  covered  by  the  name,  and 
to  a  number  of  local  bodies  exercising  certain  other  functions 
within  the  local  areas  which  collectively  make  up  London, 
the  central  body  and  the  local  bodies  deriving  their  authority 
as  representative  bodies  by  direct  election,  and  the  functions 
assigned  to  each  being  determined  so  as  to  secure  complete 
independence  and  responsibility  to  every  member  of  the 
system." 

In  February,  1899,  Mr.  Balfour  introduced  in  the  House 
of  Commons  a  "London  Government  Bill."t  He  referred 
to  the  Act  of  1888  which  created  the  London  County 
Council  as  effecting  a  change  "  so  much  in  consonance  with 
the  traditions  of  English  municipal  government  that  it  is 
likely  to  be  permanent,"  and  said  : — 

*  See  Report  of  Royal  Commissioners  on  the  Amalgamation  of  the 
City  and  County  of  London,  1894. 
t  See  Hansard,  1899,  vol.  Ixvii.  p.  354. 


OF  LONDON  397 

"We  recognise  to  the  full  that  there  must  be  a  great 
central  authority  in  London." 

"Broadly  speaking,"  he  said,  "  the  administrative  Vestry 
and  the  District  Board  exist  now  as  they  were  framed  in 
1855." 

"  It  is  with  these  administrative  Vestries  and  District 
Boards  that  the  present  Bill  proposes  to  deal.  It  is  with 
the  subordinate  area,  not  with  the  central  area,  that  we  are 
now  concerned. 

"  We  do  not  propose  to  touch  the  City  of  London. 

"  We  have  determined  that,  by  the  appointed  day  it  would 
be  desirable  that  all  London  should  be  divided  into  areas 
for  local  government,  and  that  every  area  should  be  simul- 
taneously provided  with  all  the  necessary  machinery  for 
government  of  its  local  affairs." 

He  mentioned  the  areas. 

"  The  constitution  of  the  governing  bodies  in  these  areas 
shall  be  practically  identical  with  the  constitution  which 
our  great  municipal  boroughs  already  possess  .  .  . 

"We  propose  that  there  should  be  mayor,  councillors,  and 
aldermen. 

"  As  regards  their  powers — the  Vestries  already  possess 
(except  as  to  police)  the  great  urban  powers  possessed  by 
other  municipalities.  Certain  powers  agreed  upon  between 
the  Vestries  and  the  London  County  Council  at  certain 
recent  conferences  will  be  added,  and  there  would  be  trans- 
ferred to  them  the  powers  relating  to  baths  and  wash- 
houses,  libraries,  and  burial  boards." 

"On  an  appointed  day  every  elective  Vestry  and  District 
Board  in  the  County  of  London  is  to  cease  to  exist.  He 
hoped  the  plan  would  come  into  operation  in  November, 
1900." 

The  Bill  became  an  Act — "  The  London  Government 
Act"— in  1899. 

The  new  municipal  boroughs  numbered  twenty-nine — 
"  the  City  of  London "  and  twenty-eight  others ;  sixteen 
of  them  consisting  of  single  parishes,  and  the  remaining 
twelve  of  several  amalgamated  parishes. 

A  few  extra  duties  were  cast  upon  them.     Among  them 


398      THE   SANITARY  EVOLUTION 

the  duty  of  enforcing  within  their  borough  the  bye-laws  and 
regulations  with  respect  to  dairies  and  milk,  slaughter-houses, 
and  offensive  businesses ;  and  in  some  respects  their  powers 
were  enlarged,  the  principal  addition  being  the  power  to 
adopt  and  use  the  provisions  of  Part  III.  of  the  Housing  of 
the  Working  Classes  Act,  1890,  within  their  borough. 

All  preparations  for  the  change  were  completed  by  the 
autumn  of  1899  ;  the  new  Municipal  Councils  were  elected 
on  the  4th  of  November,  the  forty-three  Vestries  and  District 
Boards  ceased  to  exist,  and  London  entered  upon  a  new 
stage  of  her  career. 

Here,  at  the  close  of  1900,  the  Vestries  and  the  District 
Boards  of  London  came  to  their  decreed  end,  and  dis- 
appeared from  the  scene  of  London  civic  life.  That  end 
was  not  regretted  by  the  general  public,  whose  opinion 
may  be  gauged  from  the  fact  that  the  name  "Vestry" 
had  become  almost  synonymous  with  incapacity,  mis- 
management, neglect,  sometimes  even  of  graver  trans- 
gressions, though  in  later  years  the  Vestries  did  something 
towards  removing  from  themselves  that  reproach. 

They  certainly  had  done  much  useful  work,  and  even  at 
the  outset  of  their  existence  were  a  great  improvement 
upon  their  predecessors.  They  had  found  their  parishes 
and  districts  forty-five  years  previously  in  the  state  de- 
scribed in  the  first  and  second  chapters  of  this  work— 
a  chaos  of  filth,  a  slough  of  insanitation  and  deadly 
disease,  and  the  great  mass  of  the  people  living  in  misery 
indescribable — and  the  task  before  them  was  one  which 
might  have  daunted  the  stoutest  heart. 

In  many  ways  they  did  their  work  well ;  local  sewerage 
and  house  drainage  were  effectually  carried  out ;  the  refuse 
of  the  great  city  was  regularly  removed ;  the  paving,  and 
lighting,  and  cleansing  of  the  streets  were  greatly  improved. 

But  in  many  parts  of  London,  and  by  many  Vestries  and 
District  Boards,  the  larger,  graver  problems  with  which 
they  were  confronted  were  scarcely  dealt  with  at  all. 
Powers  entrusted  to  them  by  Parliament  were  not  used, 
vitally  important  duties  imposed  upon  them  by  Parlia- 
ment  were  ignored   or   neglected.      Had  this   been  pure 


OF  LONDON  399 

incapacity  it  would  have  been  deplorable,  but  upon  many 
of  the  Vestries  were  men  who  either  were  themselves 
interested  in  continuing  existing  evils  and  abuses,  or  whose 
friends  were,  and  so  laws  which  should  have  removed  or 
mitigated  the  evils  were  not  administered. 

And  the  result  was  the  non-prevention  of  diseases  which 
led  to  deaths,  and  the  continuance  of  miseries  (consequent 
on  disease)  which  might  have  been  warded  off,  and  the 
sowing  of  the  seeds  of  evils  of  which  we  are  still  reaping 
the  crop. 

As  years  went  by  the  pressure  of  public  opinion  upon 
them  became  more  insistent,  and  their  administration  im- 
proved, but  even  to  the  end  many  of  them  grievously  failed 
to  fulfil  the  responsibilities  of  their  position. 

One  class  of  workers  under  them  must,  however,  be 
excluded  from  such  blame,  namely,  the  Medical  Officers 
of  Health. 

It  is  not  too  much  to  say  that  the  greater  part  of  the 
sanitary  progress  which  was  made  all  through  the  period 
of  Vestry  rule  was  directly  due  to  the  unceasing  labour,  the 
courageous  efforts,  the  insistence  of  many  of  these  officers. 
Their  recommendations  were  often  ignored,  their  requests 
constantly  denied,  their  opinions  made  light  of ;  but  in  spite 
of  such  discouragement  they  persevered.  And  not  alone  did 
they  bravely  stand  between  disease  and  the  people,  but  they 
were  ever  striving  to  drive  it  back,  and  to  destroy  its  prolific 
sources  and  its  power  ;  ever  urging  upon  their  employers  the 
necessity  for  action  to  relieve  the  people  from  the  worst  of 
the  evils  they  were  suffering  under. 

The  description  given  in  1856  by  one  of  them  that  their 
work  was  "a  war  of  the  community  against  individuals 
for  the  public  good "  had  been  proved  to  be  absolutely 
true. 

And  in  that  war,  of  them  generally,  it  is  to  be  said  that 
there  were  no  sturdier  fighters  on  the  side  of  the  community 
than  they  proved  to  be. 

In  1885  Dr.  J.  Liddle,  "  a  pioneer  of  reform,"  died  after 
thirty  years  of  "unflinching  adherence  to  duty  "  as  Medical 
Officer  of  Health  for  Whitechapel. 


400    SANITARY  EVOLUTION  OF  LONDON 

In  1889  Dr.  N.  Vinen  died  after  thirty-four  years'  service 
as  Medical  Officer  of  Health  for  St.  Olave,  Southwark.* 

In  1895  Dr.  J.  S.  Bristowe  passed  away  after  forty  years 
of  service  as  Medical  Officer  of  Health  for  Camberwell. 

And  there  are  still  in  the  service  men  whose  labours  have 
extended  over  prolonged  periods.  Such  men  as  these,  and 
others  of  them  who  gave  their  best  to  the  service  of  the 
community,  have  indeed  a  claim  to  the  lasting  gratitude  of 
the  citizens  of  London. 

*  In  his  last  report  he  recorded  the  death  of  J.  Munro,  who  had  been 
Inspector  of  Nuisances  for  thirty-three  years,  so  for  that  long  period 
they  had  worked  together. 


CHAPTEE  VII 

1901-1906 

Once  more  the  census  placed  on  record  the  actual  popula- 
tion of  the  great  metropolis,  no  longer  divided,  so  far  as 
local  government  was  concerned,  into  parishes  and  districts, 
but  now  into  a  smaller  number  of  municipal  boroughs.  The 
figures  of  this  census  are  the  last  available  for  reliable 
deductions  as  to  numerous  important  matters  forming  part 
of  that  comprehensive  subject,  the  sanitary  evolution  of 
London. 

The  enumerated  population  of  London  had  reached  the 
great  number  of  4,536,541,  and  showed  an  increase  of 
308,224  during  the  ten  years  1891  to  1901.  The  rate  of 
increase,  however,  continued  to  show  a  decline,  having 
fallen  from  10"4  to  7'3  per  cent,  during  the  intercensal 
period. 

The  same  movement  of  the  population  noted  in  previous 
censuses  was  recorded  in  this  one. 

In  the  City  of  London  and  six  of  the  central  metropolitan 
boroughs  the  enumerated  population  showed  an  actual 
decline  of  over  67,000  in  the  ten  years,  notwithstanding 
that  the  recorded  excess  of  births  over  deaths  in  that  period 
amounted  approximately  to  70,000. 

In  all  the  other  boroughs  there  had  been  increases.  In 
the  Eastern  group  the  increases  had  been  very  small,  with 
the  exception  of  Stepney,  where,  owing  to  the  immigration 
of  aliens,  the  population  had  increased  13,484.  In  the 
Northern  group  the  greatest  increase  had  been  in  Hackney 
(19,666).    In  the  Western  group  Fulham  showed  the  highest 

27  401 


402       THE   SANITARY  EVOLUTION 

increase,  namely,  45,500 ;  whilst  on  the  south  side  of  the 
river,  Wandsworth  had  increased  76,500,  and  several  others 
showed  large  increases. 

Outside  the  boundaries  of  the  county  the  "outer  ring" 
had  attained  to  a  population  of  2,044,553  persons — an 
increase  of  639,000. 

If  the  metropolis  and  this  "  outer  ring"  were  regarded  as 
one  city — and  in  many  matters  it  is  hard  to  consider  them 
apart — the  total  population  in  1901  was  6,581,372. 

The  information  as  to  the  birthplaces  of  the  people 
showed  that  of  the  4,536,541  persons,  3,016,580  were 
natives  of  London.  The  proportion  of  natives  of  London 
had  increased ;  the  proportion  from  the  rest  of  the  United 
Kingdom  had  decreased  ;  whilst  there  had  been  an  increase 
of  40,000  foreigners,  the  number  having  considerably  more 
than  doubled  since  1881.  Of  every  1,000  inhabitants,  668 
were  born  in  London,  and  332  elsewhere,  as  against  653 
and  347  respectively  in  1891. 

Once  again  the  arrivals  and  departures  by  the  gates  of 
life  and  death  were  recorded.  In  the  ten  years  from  the 
1st  of  April,  1891,  to  the  31st  of  March,  1901,  1,329,428 
births  had  been  registered,  and  838,454  deaths.  The  excess 
of  births  over  deaths,  therefore,  was  490,974 ;  and  as  the 
increase  of  population  was  309,228,  it  followed  that  181,746 
persons  had  migrated.  As  the  migration  had  only  been 
114,000  in  1891,  it  was  manifest  that  migration  to  outside 
the  County  of  London  was  increasing. 

The  total  number  of  inhabited  houses  was  571,768,  as 
against  547,146  in  1891 ;  but  owing  to  a  variation  in  the 
manner  of  collecting  the  information,  the  figures  have  little 
value  for  comparative  purposes. 

The  accurate  figures  given  of  the  population  of  London 
enabled  the  death-rate  to  be  calculated  on  facts  instead  of 
upon  estimates. 

The  death-rate  was  17*1  per  1,000  living  in  1901,  a 
decrease  from  18'6  in  the  previous  year,  and  from  21*0 
in  1891. 

But  to  be  set  against  this  was  the  portentous  fact  that 
the  birth-rate  had  decHned  from  31*8  per  1,000  in  1891  to 


OF   LONDON  403 

29*0  per  1,000  persons  living  in  1901,  the  lowest  recorded  in 
London  since  civil  registration  began. 

The  public  health  of  London  was  now  altogether  on  a 
better  level  than  it  had  been  before,  but  in  the  course  of 
the  year  1901  some  cases  of  smallpox  appeared  in  various 
parts  of  London,  and  in  1902  there  was  the  most  severe 
outbreak  of  it — with  the  possible  exception  of  1884-5 — since 
1871,  nearly  9,000  cases  being  admitted  to  the  hospitals  of 
the  Metropolitan  Asylums  Board  between  September,  1901, 
and  July,  1902.  Ninety-three  patients  were  removed  to 
hospital  in  one  day,  and  on  one  day  (March  11th)  1,604 
cases  were  under  treatment.  Over  1,300  persons  died  of  it 
in  the  year. 

The  cost  of  disease  to  the  community  has  often  been 
referred  to  in  previous  chapters.  The  Metropolitan  Asylums 
Board  stated  that  so  far  as  it  was  concerned,  the  cost  for 
1901-2  might  be  put  at  ^500,000 — equal  to  about  a  three- 
penny rate — a  sum  which  was  wholly  apart  from  loss  of 
wages  to  the  individual,  and  various  other  expenses,  and 
apart  from  the  charge  upon  the  rates  of  those  who  were 
pauperised  by  the  death  of  the  breadwinner  of  the  family. 
1903  was  "a  year  of  comparatively  very  slight  prevalence 
of  infectious  disorders." 

In  1904  there  was  "  a  marked  absence  of  undue  activity 
amongst  the  infectious  diseases  of  the  metropolis." 

And  1905  was  the  healthiest  year  in  the  records  of 
London  since  registration,  the  death-rate  being  15*1  per 
1,000. 

In  the  five  years  which  have  passed  since  the  census  of 
1901,  Parliament  has  passed  three  Acts  of  the  utmost  con- 
sequence to  the  sanitary  condition  of  the  people  of  London, 
marking,  in  their  respective  spheres,  definite  stages  in  the 
sanitary  evolution  of  the  metropolis. 

The  sanitary  evils  to  which  many  of  the  people  were 
subject  might,  as  has  already  been  stated,  be  roughly  divided 
into  two  classes — those  of  their  dwellings  at  night,  and  those 
of  their  workplaces  in  the  day. 

"The  Factory  and  Workshop  Act"  of  1901  dealt  with 
the  latter.    It  was  the  amendment  and  final  codification  of 


404       THE   SANITARY   EVOLUTION 

a  mass  of  piecemeal  legislation  which  had  been  spread  over 
a  period  of  years. 

In  1878,  previous  enactments  on  the  subject  had  been 
consolidated  into  one  Act.  That  Act  was  amended  in  1883, 
1891,  and  1895.  All  were  now  finally  embodied  in  this  Act 
of  1901  with  several  additions  and  amendments.  Additional 
sanitary  provisions  were  made  as  to  the  ventilation  of 
factories  and  workshops,  and  as  to  the  drainage  of  floors. 
Bakehouses  came  within  the  scope  of  the  Act,  and  the  law 
was  made  much  more  stringent  as  to  them.  After  January 
1,  1904,  it  would  be  unlawful  to  use  any  underground  bake- 
house unless  certified  by  the  Borough  Council  to  be  suitable. 

A  register  of  workshops  was  to  be  kept,  and  the  Medical 
Officer  of  Health  was,  in  his  annual  report,  to  report 
specifically  on  the  administration  of  the  Act  in  workshops 
and  workplaces — a  direction  which  ensured  publicity  as  to  the 
action  of  the  local  authorities.  The  powers  of  the  sanitary 
authorities  were  extended  by  the  Act,  and  certain  duties 
necessary  for  efficient  administration  imposed  upon  them. 

The  Act  also  ensured  the  inspection  of  dwelling-houses 
where  there  were  outworkers. 

The  work  imposed  on  the  Sanitary  Authorities  was  very 
considerable  as  a  very  large  number  of  premises  came  under 
their  supervision,  and  every  workroom  in  each  workshop 
had  to  be  measured  in  order  that  its  cubic  space  might  be 
ascertained ;  and  when  the  subsequent  routine  inspection  of 
the  premises,  and  of  outworkers'  premises,  remedying  of 
defects  and  other  duties,  were  taken  into  consideration,  the 
magnitude  of  the  work,  and  the  necessity  of  an  adequate 
staff  of  officers,  were  evident. 

The  records  show  that  at  the  end  of  1904,  34,488  work- 
shops in  London  were  under  the  supervision  of  the  local 
authorities.  The  necessity  of  inspection  was  demonstrated 
by  the  fact  that  18,922  conditions  required  remedying. 

Improvement  was  testified  to  by  the  Medical  Officers  of 
Health,  overcrowding  was  diminished,  and  it  was  further 
stated  that  "  employers  are  found  to  co-operate  willingly  with 
the  local  authorities  in  the  remedy  of  faulty  conditions." 

Altogether,  then,  when  a  comparison  is  made  between  the 


OF   LONDON  405 

conditions  of  the  factories  and  workshops,  and  workplaces  in 
which  the  people  worked  in  the  middle  of  the  last  century 
and  now,  the  contrast  is  remarkable.  The  worst  of  the 
evils  have  been  swept  away,  and  healthy  conditions  of  work 
have  taken  their  place. 

And  the  limitations  put  upon  the  labour  of  children  and 
young  persons  and  women  have  all  been  to  the  good  of  those 
subjected  to  them.  And  the  public  health  of  London,  so  far 
as  this  very  large  and  very  valuable  portion  of  the  population 
is  concerned,  has  been  immensely  the  gainer. 

The  second  of  the  three  Acts  since  1900,  which  had  a 
vital  bearing  on  the  sanitary  condition  of  the  people  of 
London,  was  "  The  MetropoHs  Water  Act "  of  1902. 

That  the  water  supply  should  be  under  the  control  and 
management  of  the  municipality  had  long  been  advocated, 
but  though  hundreds  of  County  and  Municipal  Authorities 
in  Great  Britain — many  of  them  not  the  hundredth  part  of 
the  size  of  London — had  a  Municipal  Water  Supply,  that 
great  boon  was  denied  to  London.  The  reform  was 
vigorously  pressed  by  the  central  representative  body  of 
London — the  London  County  Council — and  after  several 
Eoyal  Commissions  of  Inquiry,  Parliament  dealt  with  the 
subject  in  1902.  But  the  manner  of  dealing  with  it  was 
unfortunate  and  retrogade. 

A  new  public  Board — the  Metropolitan  Water  Board — 
was  established  for  the  purpose  of  acquiring,  by  purchase, 
for  the  inhabitants  of  London,  and  of  certain  areas  outside 
London,  the  undertakings  of  the  eight  Metropolitan  Water 
Companies,  and  for  managing  and  carrying  on  the  supply 
of  water.  The  great  bulk  of  the  purchase  money  was  to 
be  provided  by  the  ratepayers  of  London,  and  the  great 
bulk  of  the  debt  to  be  a  charge  on  the  rateable  property 
of  London. 

The  Board  was  to  consist  of  66  members,  14  of  whom 
were  to  be  nominated  by  the  London  County  Council,  31 
by  the  Metropolitan  Borough  Councils  and  the  City  Cor- 
poration, and  the  remaining  21  by  the  authorities  of  localities 
outside  London  hitherto  supplied  by  the  Companies. 

The  Board,  therefore,  was  not  a  representative    body 


406      THE   SANITARY  EVOLUTION 

directly  elected  by  the  ratepayers  or  electors  of  London, 
but  was  constructed,  on  the  discredited  precedent  of  the 
Metropolitan  Board  of  Works,  of  delegated  instead  of  elected 
members ;  and  though  the  people  of  London  were  emanci- 
pated from  the  control  of  trading  Water  Companies,  they 
got  in  their  place  a  body  over  which  they  can  exercise  no 
direct,  and  therefore  very  little  actual,  control. 

The  new  Board  was  constituted  in  the  spring  of  1903,  and 
took  over  the  undertakings  of  the  Water  Companies  on  the 
24th  of  June,  1904,  at  the  cost  to  the  ratepayers  of  London 
of  not  much  less  than  5640,000,000,  a  sum  immensely  higher 
than  that  at  which  they  could  have  been  acquired  many 
years  before. 

And  inasmuch  as  the  Board  can  call  upon  the  ratepayers 
of  London  to  make  good  any  deficiency  of  income  resulting 
from  their  management,  the  unsatisfactory  result  is  the 
establishment  in  London  of  a  new  indirectly-elected  public 
body  vested  with  enormous  financial  powers  affecting  the 
interests  of  the  ratepayers  of  London,  and  yet  but  little 
responsible  to  public  control. 

The  third  of  the  three  important  Acts,  the  Education 
London  Act,  was  passed  in  1903,  and  carried  in  its  bosom 
possibilities  of  the  most  far-reaching  benefits  to  the  health 
and  physical  welfare  of  future  generations. 

By  this  Act  the  London  School  Board  was  abolished, 
and  its  duties  transferred  to  the  London  County  Council, 
which  was  constituted  the  Education  Authority  for  London. 

Though,  indirectly,  the  schools  of  the  Board  were  having 
considerable  effect  upon  the  physical  well-being  of  the  rising 
generation,  it  cannot  be  said  that  the  School  Board  had 
utilised  its  vast  opportunities  for  improving  the  general 
health.  By  instruction,  by  influence,  it  might  have  done  so 
much,  might  have  moulded  the  physical  future  of  genera- 
tions. But  education  was  always  much  more  in  the  minds 
of  the  Board  than  health,  though  the  two  might  well  have 
been  considered  together,  and  without  health  education  is 
of  little  use. 

The  Board  in  their  "  Final  Report  "  endeavoured  to  offer 
an  explanation  of  their  inaction. 


OF  LONDON  407 

"It  has  always  been  a  question  how  far  the  Board  are 
authorised  to  spend  public  money  on  the  medical  care  of 
children.  On  the  one  hand  suggestions  have  been  made  for 
the  inspection  of  their  teeth,  and  the  treatment  of  cases  of 
anaemic  condition  and  arrested  development.  On  the  other 
hand  a  legal  opinion  has  been  expressed  that  the  Board  are 
not  entitled  to  do  anything,  or  to  take  any  measures  except 
such  as  spring  from  the  fact  that  the  attendance  of  the 
children  is  compulsory.  On  this  account  it  has  been  thought 
right  to  take  action  only  in  those  cases  in  which  on  account 
of  contagious  disease,  it  is  necessary  to  exclude  children 
from  school."  * 

Even  the  sanitary  condition  of  the  schools  does  not 
appear  to  have  been  well  looked  after. 

In  January,  1890,  one  of  the  Committees  submitted  a 
report  to  the  Board,  on  which  the  resolution  was  passed — 

"  That  the  Committee  be  authorised  to  thoroughly  examine 
the  whole  of  the  drainage  of  any  school  of  the  Board  where 
they  may  think  it  necessary,"  &c. 

The  drainage  was  subsequently  examined.  In  181  schools 
the  drainage  was  all  right.  In  292  of  the  schools  re-drainage 
was  required.  For  how  long  that  fertile  source  of  disease 
had  been  scattering  its  evil  germs  among  the  tens  of 
thousands  of  children  attending  these  insanitary  schools,  no 
information  is  available. 

In  1890,  just  twenty  years  after  its  formation,  the  Board 
appointed  a  Medical  Officer,  and  he  gave  only  a  portion  of 
his  time  to  the  work. 

"  Before  1891  there  was  no  attempt  on  the  part  of  the 
Board  to  prevent  the  spread  of  infectious  diseases  by  pre- 
cautionary measures  being  adopted  in  the  school."  + 

In  1895  the  Medical  Officer  of  Health  for  Paddington 
wrote : — 

"  Schoolteachers  should  be  required  to  inform  the  Sanitary 
Authority  of  any  special  amount  of  illness  which  may  occur 
among  the  scholars.    Half  a  school  may  be  away  through 


*  Final  Report  of  the  School  Board  for  London,  p.  326. 

t  See  Report  of  Medical  Officer  of  the  late  School  Board  for  1903-4. 


408       THE   SANITARY  EVOLUTION 

sickness  if  the  disease  be  not  a  notified  one,  but  no  informa- 
tion of  such  fact  comes  to  the  Sanitary  Authority." 

And  in  1896  he  wrote  : — 

"  The  past  year  had  emphasised  the  need  of  definite  in- 
structions to  school  teachers  to  keep  the  Medical  Officers  of 
Health  informed  of  the  existence  of  infectious  disease  among 
their  pupils.  It  is  surmised  that  there  were  upwards  of 
2,000  cases  of  measles  in  the  parish  in  the  earlier  part  of  the 
year." 

And  "measles  is  the  most  fatal  disease  of  childhood." 

In  evening  schools  "  efforts  were  made  between  1899  and 
1903  to  teach  the  simple  laws  of  health.  .  .  .  Prior  to  1898 
gymnastics  were  taught  in  only  a  few  schools."  * 

In  1902  the  Medical  Officer  resigned,  and  a  new  one  was 
appointed  who  should  give  his  whole  time  to  the  work.  His 
first  report  (1903)  is  enlightening  as  to  the  methods  of  the 
School  Board  in  matters  pertaining  to  the  health  of  the 
children  attending  the  schools." 

He  wrote : — 

"  The  maintenance  of  sanitary  conditions  as  regards  heat- 
ing, lighting,  ventilation,  and  cleanliness  both  of  the 
buildings  and  persons  of  the  pupils,  the  detection  of  early 
cases  of  illness  .  .  .  ill-health  from  many  causes,  school 
habits,  and  school  work  in  their  influence  on  health  .  .  . 
these  .  .  .  come  under  the  daily  work  of  the  teacher,  and 
there  is  no  requirement  that  any  knowledge  of  such  matters 
should  be  possessed  by  him.  It  is  left  to  his  own  common- 
sense,  and  he  muddles  through.  The  definite  requirement 
of  hygienic  knowledge  as  part  of  the  equipment  of  every 
teacher  is  a  necessity  if  a  great  part  of  the  work  of  this 
department  is  not  to  be  useless  in  result."  t 

And  in  his  Report  of  the  following  year  he  wrote  : — 

"  The  provision  of  medical  oversight  for  school  life  is 
rapidly  becoming  a  necessity.  Five-sixths  of  the  population 
spend  a  seventh  part  of  their  lives  under  the  exceedingly 
artificial  conditions  of  the  schools,  and  during  the  plastic 
period  of  life.    Their  chief  function  in  the  earlier  part  of  that 

■■'■  Final  Eeport,  p.  297. 

\  First  Keport  of  Medical  Officer  for  year  ended  March  25, 1903,  p.  24. 


OF  LONDON  409 

period  is  to  grow,  and  it  is  necessary  that  they  should  not 
only  do  this,  but  do  it  under  favourable  circumstances  for 
development."  * 

Soon  after  the  transfer  of  the  administration  of  the 
Education  Acts  to  the  London  County  Council,  the  medical 
work  of  the  late  School  Board  was  amalgamated  with  that  of 
the  London  County  Council.  The  change  is  one  which  is  likely 
to  be  of  the  greatest  benefit  to  the  children  in  the  schools, 
and  through  them,  as  times  go  on,  to  the  population  of 
London  as  a  whole.  The  great  value  of  health  will 
receive  greater  recognition  than  it  has  done  hitherto,  whilst 
greater  facilities  for  instruction  in  health  matters,  and 
better  physical  training,  cannot  fail  to  have  the  most  bene- 
ficial effect.  The  vast  field  for  this  work  is  evident  when 
it  is  called  to  mind  that  nearly  half  a  million  of  children 
are  in  average  attendance  at  the  London  County  Council 
Schools. 

Three  other  matters  legislated  upon  by  Parliament  claim 
mention. 

In  1902  the  Midwives  Act  was  passed.  It  provided  for 
the  constitution  of  a  Central  Midwives  Board  with  power  to 
frame  rules  for  the  registration  of  midwives  and  for  regulat- 
ing and  supervising  the  practice  of  midwives.  After  the  1st 
of  April,  1905,  no  person  might  use  the  title  of  midwife  with- 
out being  certified  under  the  Act.  The  London  County 
Council  was  constituted  the  local  supervising  authority  for 
London,  and  under  its  supervision  much  good  has  already 
been  done. 

Also  in  1902  the  Cremation  Act,  which  empowered  burial 
authorities  to  provide  and  maintain  crematoria,  and  em- 
powered the  Secretary  of  State  to  make  regulations  as 
to  the  conditions  under  which  cremation  might  take 
place. 

And  to  complete  the  tale  of  sanitary  legislation  since  1900, 
a  few  reforms  were  secured  by  sections  in  the  annual  General 
Powers  Acts  which  the  London  County  Council  obtained 
from  Parliament.  Among  these  was  one  rather  important 
one. 

*  Second  Annual  Eeport  to  March  25,  1904. 


410      THE  SANITARY  EVOLUTION 

In  1894  the  duty  of  Supervising  and  regulating  the  com- 
mon lodging-houses  in  London,  which  hitherto  had  been 
performed  by  the  Commissioner  of  Police,  was  transferred 
to  the  London  County  Council.  In  that  year  654  such 
houses  were  on  the  register,  and  the  authorised  number  of 
lodgers  was  close  upon  30,000  persons.  In  1902  the  Council 
obtained  powers  for  the  annual  licensing  of  such  houses. 
These  larger  powers  enabled  the  Council  to  improve  the 
sanitary  condition  of  many  of  these  houses.  The  super- 
vision of  these  houses  has  been  most  satisfactorily  carried 
out,  and  has  been  of  immense  value  in  securing  sanitary 
abodes  for  the  miserable  people  who  frequent  them,  and  in 
diminishing  what  would  otherwise  doubtless  often  be  a  source 
of  infection  to  the  community. 

The  sanitary  evolution  of  London  having  begun  a  little 
before  the  middle  of  the  nineteenth  century,  the  jfigures 
of  the  censuses  of  1851  and  1901  afford  the  means  for 
measuring  many  of  the  great  changes  which  have  taken 
place  in  the  intervening  period. 

And  a  comparison  of  the  state  of  those  things  which 
most  affect  the  public  health  at  these  two  dates  enables  a 
reliable  deduction  to  be  drawn  as  to  whether  there  has  been 
evolution  to  a  higher  level  of  public  health,  or  a  retro- 
gression ;  and,  if  the  former,  the  progress  which  that 
evolution  has  made. 

In  1851  the  population  of  London  was  2,362,236.  In 
1901  it  had  reached  4,536,541.  And  when  to  this  is  added 
the  fact  that  all  through  the  intervening  years  so  enormous 
a  mass  of  people  has  been  cooped  up  in  an  area  of  117  square 
miles,  and  that  at  the  present  time  there  are  over  4,600,000 
within  that  small  area,  the  multiplicity  of  the  matters 
decisively  influencing  their  health  and  physical  well  being, 
and  the  vastness  of  the  issues  at  stake,  come  into  vivid 
light. 

As  has  been  often  said,  the  very  basis  or  foundation  of 
the  sanitation  of  a  city  is  an  efficient  system  of  drainage. 
"Without  it  sanitation  is  impossible. 

What  the  main  drainage  of  London  was  up  to  1858  has 
been  described  in  the  earlier  chapters  of  this  book.    In  effect, 


OF  LONDON  411 

nothing  less  than  an  entire  system  had  then  to  be  designed 
and  constructed  to  provide  London  with  this  first  essential. 
This  was  done,  and  the  result  was  of  immediate  and 
enormous  benefit  to  London,  and  ever  since  then  the 
maintenance  and  extension  and  improvement  of  this  work 
has  received  the  solicitous  attention  of  the  Central  Authority. 
Originally  designed  for  3,500,000  people,  it  had,  as  London 
grew,  to  be  considerably  enlarged  and  extended,  and  as  some 
of  the  districts  outside  the  boundaries  of  London  were 
allowed  by  Parliament  to  drain  into  the  London  sewers,  still 
larger  works  had  to  be  constructed.  And  now  the  system 
serves  a  resident  population  of,  in  round  figures,  5,500,000 
people  spread  over  an  area  of  about  140  square  miles.  It 
comprises  close  upon  90  miles  of  great  intercepting  and  out- 
fall sewers,  176  miles  of  main  sewers,  and  26  miles  of  large 
relief  sewers,  constructed  for  the  special  purpose  of  convey- 
ing storm- water  away. 

This,  however,  was  but  part  of  the  provision  which  had  to 
be  made.  During  the  regime  of  the  Metropolitan  Board  of 
Works,  more  than  1,100  miles  of  new  sewers  were  laid  by 
Vestries  and  District  Boards  in  their  respective  districts,  and 
since  the  creation  of  the  London  County  Council  of  1888, 
further  additions  of  1,516  miles  have  been  made,  making  a 
total  of  over  2,600  miles. 

All  this  work  was  essential  to  enable  a  proper  system 
of  house  drainage  to  be  carried  out,  and  as  the  drainage  of 
houses  into  the  local  sewers  was  compulsory,  the  general 
system  of  drainage  was  thus  rounded  off  or  completed. 

The  change  effected  thereby  in  the  conditions  of  life  in 
London  has  been  remarkable.  There  are  no  longer  open 
ditch-sewers  polluting  the  air  with  their  pestilential  abomi- 
nations ;  no  longer  streets  without  sewers,  and  houses  without 
the  possibility  of  drainage. 

In  the  Eeport  of  the  County  Council  for  1902-3,  prepared 
by  the  Clerk  of  the  Council,  there  is  given  a  calculation  of 
what  these  works  annually  accomplish. 

"  The  flow  of  sewage  during  the  year,  namely  87,556 
million  gallons,  represents  a  canal  24  feet  wide  with  a  depth 
of  9  feet,  running  day  and  night  at  the  rate  of  2  feet  per 


412      THE   SANITARY  EVOLUTION 

second ;  or  it  may  be  considered  as  equivalent  to  a  lake  of 
44  square  miles,  or  about  one-third  of  the  area  of  the  county 
of  London,  with  a  depth  of  11^  feet." 

To  the  efficiency  and  thoroughness  of  the  present  system 
is  primarily  due  the  greatly  improved  condition  of  the  public 
health  of  London  as  compared  with  1855. 

Water  was  another  of  the  absolute  necessities  of  existence 
and  of  sanitation.  An  ample  supply  of  good  water  is 
essential  for  health ;  and  the  numerous  outbreaks  of 
typhoid  fever  which  in  recent  years  have  occurred  in 
England  with  a  heavy  death  roll,  testify  to  the  dangers  in- 
curred by  bad  water,  and  the  necessity  for  the  utmost  care 
being  taken  to  secure  its  being  pure  and  uncontaminated. 

The  supply  of  water  in  the  eighteen -j&f ties  had  been 
very  limited  in  quantity,  and,  with  the  exception  of  that 
supplied  by  one  company,  abominable  in  quality.  And 
progress  to  a  better  state  of  things  was  slow.  Improve- 
ments were  made  most  unwillingly  and  haltingly  by  the 
Water  Companies,  and  only  under  Parliament's  reluctant 
compulsion,  whilst  the  inaction  of  most,  and  the  obstruction 
of  some,  of  the  Vestries  and  District  Boards,  and  the 
hostility  of  "  owners  "  of  houses  to  being  put  to  expense 
for  water  fittings,  still  further  impeded  reform,  and 
perpetuated  the  evils  inflicted  upon  the  inhabitants  of 
London — suffering,  disease,  and  death. 

The  "  slaughter  wells  "  and  the  sewer-ditches  were, 
however,  filled  up  and  those  evil  sources  of  supply  ended. 
And  a  supply  of  water  was  gradually  extended  to  the 
streets  which  were  without  any,  and  an  increased  supply 
to  others  which  had  but  little ;  but  it  was  not  until  1899, 
the  very  end  of  the  century,  that  the  County  of  London 
was,  for  the  first  time,  receiving  a  constant  supply  in 
accordance  with  the  provisions  of  the  Metropolis  Water 
Act  of  1871.  And  by  slow  degrees  the  sources  of  defile- 
ment of  the  water  were  reduced,  and  a  larger  proportion 
of  the  dirt  ingredients  filtered  out,  until  at  last  some  of 
the  worst  evils  connected  with  the  supply  were  rectified. 
And  in  1891  it  was  enacted  by  Parliament  *  that  a  dwelling- 

■'•  In  the  Public  Health  (London)  Act. 


OF   LONDON  413 

house  without  a  proper  and  sufficient  supply  should  be 
a  "  nuisance  "  liable  to  be  dealt  with  summarily. 

The  main  cause  of  all  the  grave  disadvantages  the  people 
of  London  had  so  unceasingly  suffered  under  in  this  matter 
arose  from  the  fact  that  the  interests  of  the  Water 
Companies  and  the  interests  of  the  people  of  London  ran 
directly  counter  to  each  other.  London,  in  fact,  had  from 
the  very  outset  been  at  the  mercy  of  trading  companies 
for  its  supply  of  this  necessity  of  life,  and  bitter  cause, 
indeed,  had  London  to  rue  it. 

It  is  too  soon  to  know  what  improvements  will  result 
in  the  supply  of  water  to  the  people  of  London,  but  in 
the  interests  of  the  public  health  it  is  most  unsatisfactory 
that  the  public  should  even  now  be  debarred  from  that  direct 
control  which  alone  can  secure  them  the  fullest  benefits. 

In  another  of  the  numerous  branches  of  the  great  subject 
of  the  public  health  of  London — the  widening  of  the  streets 
and  thoroughfares — the  improvements  made  in  process 
of  years  was  marked,  and  the  better  provision  of  light  and 
air  and  breathing  space  has  been  considerable. 

The  total  gross  cost  of  new  streets  and  improvements 
carried  out  by  the  Metropolitan  Board  of  Works  had 
amounted  to  over  £12,000,000,*  whilst  it  had  contributed 
another  million  and  a  half  to  the  cost  of  smaller  street 
improvements  carried  out  by  the  "City"  and  other  districts, 
which  latter  also  expended  considerable  sums. 

The  London  County  Council  continued  the  policy  of 
the  Metropolitan  Board  of  Works,  and  by  the  year  1904-5 
it  had  carried  out,  or  was  in  process  of  carrying  out, 
improvements  at  an  estimated  gross  cost  of  over 
£11,000,000,  t  the  greatest  and  most  costly  of  all  being 
the  new  thoroughfare — Kingsway  and  Aldwych — connecting 
Holborn  with  the  Strand,  which  swept  away  some  of  the 
most  notorious  and  worst  slums  in  London. 

In  addition  to  these,  many  local  improvements  have 
been  carried  out  by  the  "City"  and  by  the  Vestries  and 

*  The  recoupments  arising  from  the  sale  of  surplus  lands  reduced 
the  actual  or  net  cost  to  less  than  J68,000,000. 
I  Here  the  net  cost  is  estimated  to  be  about  ^5,500,000. 


414       THE   SANITARY  EV^OLUTION 

District  Boards,  and  later  by  the  Borough  Councils.  These 
were  estimated  to  cost  about  £1,800,000.  The  total  work 
accomplished,  therefore,  has  been  very  considerable,  but 
the  cost  has  been  huge ;  amounting  in  the  whole  to  about 
^£27,000,000. 

Of  greater  value  to  the  health  of  the  people  has  been 
the  increase  of  the  number  of  parks  and  open  spaces  in 
London,  not  merely  in  preventing  land  being  built  over, 
but  in  the  opportunities  afforded  the  people,  and  especially 
the  younger  portion  of  them,  for  exercise. 

Here  considerable  acquisitions  have  been  made  since  the 
time  of  the  Metropolitan  Board  of  Works.  Immediately 
after  the  creation  of  the  London  County  Council  two 
generous  gifts  were  made  to  the  citizens  of  London — 
Waterlow  Park  of  30  acres  and  Myatt's  Fields — and  the 
Council  had  acquired  Hackney  Marsh,  with  337  acres ; 
Brockwell  Park,  with  127  acres ;  and  Avery  Hill,  84  acres ; 
and  some  distance  from  London,  803  acres  of  Hainault 
Forest.  In  addition  to  these  several  small  pieces  of  ground 
were  acquired  and  thrown  open  as  public  gardens  and 
recreation  grounds. 

The  "City"  had  also  acquired,  outside  the  County  of 
London,  Epping  Forest,  about  5,560  acres  in  extent, 
Bumham  Beeches,  375  acres  ;  Coulsdon  Common,  347  acres ; 
and  a  few  small  open  spaces  in  the  "  City  "  itself. 

And  many  acquisitions  had  been  made  by  the  Vestries 
and  District  Boards,  and,  since  their  supersession,  by  the 
Borough  Councils. 

Purity  of  air  was  another  of  the  important  elements 
of  a  satisfactory  health  condition. 

Once  that  the  Thames  had  ceased  to  be  the  main  sewer 
of  London,  and  once  that  the  hundreds  of  thousands 
of  cesspools  were  filled  in  and  abolished,  the  most  persistent 
and  fruitful  and  worst  of  the  causes  of  the  impurity  and 
unwholesomeness  of  the  atmosphere  were  removed.  Gradu- 
ally too,  but  only  too  slowly — a  slowness  resulting  in 
widespread  loss  of  health  and  life — were  the  noxious  trades 
in  London  made  amenable  to  the  law,  and  somewhat  less 
noxious  to  those  living  in  their  immediate  neighbourhood ; 


OF  LONDON  415 

this,  too,  without  that  ruin  to  trade  and  manufactures  which 
was  always  predicted  when  any  effort  was  made  to  prevent 
the  prevalence  of  intolerable  nuisances. 

The  duty  of  administering  the  provisions  of  the  law 
relating  to  the  abatement  of  smoke  nuisances  rested  with 
the  police.  Under  their  action  a  steady  reduction  had 
taken  place  in  offences  against  the  law.  In  1882,  1,248 
cases  were  reported,  and  there  had  been  162  convictions; 
and  in  1890  the  numbers  had  sunk  to  702  reported  cases 
and  46  convictions. 

In  1891,  by  the  Public  Health  London  Act,  the  duty 
was  transferred  to  the  Sanitary  Authorities.  Considerable 
use  has  been  made  by  them  of  the  Act.  In  many  cases 
severe  penalties  were  imposed,  and  the  general  result  has 
been  a  very  satisfactory  improvement.  Much,  however, 
of  the  fouling  of  the  atmosphere  is  caused  by  factories 
outside  London,  and  consequently  outside  the  control  of 
the  local  authorities  of  London. 

And  yet  another  of  the  great  branches  of  the  general 
subject  of  the  public  health  is  the  food  supply  of  the  people. 
It  would  be  difficult  to  give  any  approximate  estimate  even 
of  the  part  which  good  or  bad  food  has  in  its  effect  upon 
the  public  health,  or  to  produce  any  statistics  on  the 
subject,  but,  undoubtedly,  it  is  a  very  large  part;  and 
every  now  and  then  the  outbreak  of  some  serious  illness 
and  heavy  loss  of  life,  directly  traceable  to  the  consumption 
of  bad  food,  shows  how  important  it  is  to  safeguard  the 
people  from  such  disasters. 

Thus  in  1901  there  was  an  outbreak  of  scarlet  fever, 
in  which  some  300  persons  were  attacked,  directly  traced 
to  an  infective  milk  supply. 

Previous  to  the  date  of  the  Nuisances  Eemoval  Act  of 
1855  there  was,  so  far  as  London  was  concerned,  practically 
no  control  or  supervision  over  the  food  sold  to  and  consumed 
by  the  people.  That  Act  contained  a  section  providing 
for  the  inspection  of  food  by  the  local  sanitary  authority, 
so  the  importance  of  securing  wholesome  food  for  the 
people  was  then  recognised.  Little,  if  any,  use  was  made 
of  the  power  thus  given,  and  the  Act  was  amended  and 
extended ;  but  even  then  it  was  almost  a  dead  letter. 


416       THE   SANITARY  EVOLUTION 

As  years  advanced  great  scientific  discoveries  demon- 
strated the  fact  that  some  of  the  most  dangerous  diseases, 
such  as  typhoid  and  scarlet  fever,  could  be  conveyed  in 
food  of  various  sorts,  and  opened  up  a  new  vista  of  dangers 
as  to  the  conveyance  of  disease.*  And  the  huge  size  of 
London,  and  the  vast  numbers  of  its  population,  increased 
enormously  the  difficulty  of  safeguarding  the  public  from 
the  dangers  of  contaminated  food. 

The  first  and  greater  portion  of  this  vi^ork  was  done  by 
the  Corporation  of  the  City  of  London.  Its  Committee,  the 
Port  Sanitary  Authority,  was  able  to  prevent  large  quantities 
of  bad  meat  which  arrived  by  sea  being  put  upon  the 
markets ;  and  the  Corporation,  which  administered  the 
principal  markets  of  London  —  the  cattle-markets  at 
Deptford  and  Islington,  the  fish-market  at  Billingsgate, 
and  the  others  at  Smithfield  and  Leadenhall  and  Spital- 
fields — by  a  system  of  inspection,  prevented  large  quantities 
of  bad  or  diseased  food  being  sold  to  the  public. 

In  1905,  415,000  tons  of  meat  reached  the  Central 
Smithfield  Market,  of  which  2,128  tons  were  seized  as 
being  diseased  and  unsound.  At  Billingsgate,  211,600  tons 
of  fish  were  delivered,  of  which  674  tons  were  condemned. 
And  there  were  28  wharves  and  warehouses  in  the  City 
where  tinned  food  and  tinned  meat  and  vegetables  were 
received.  173  tons  were  seized.  All  these  places  were 
daily  inspected. 

This,  however,  was  only  a  portion  of  the  food  which 
reached  London.  The  responsibility  for  inspecting  food  in 
other  parts  of  the  metropolis  rested  (under  the  Public 
Health  (London)  Act  of  1891)  with  the  various  Sanitary 
Authorities,  and  the  reports  of  the  Medical  Officers  of 
Health  contain  accounts  of  inspections  by  them,  and  of  the 
seizure  of  meat,  fish,  poultry,  rabbits,  tinned  food,  vegetables, 
eggs,  and  sweetmeats,  and  of  prosecutions,  and  of  a  few 
convictions.    And  many  other  articles  of  food  were,  under 

*  The  International  Congress  of  Hygiene,  held  in  Brussels  in  1903, 
passed  a  resolution  declaring  meat  to  be  unfit  for  human  food  when 
it  was  derived  from  animals  attacked  by  bacterial  anthrax,  glanders, 
rabies,  tetanus,  tuberculosis,  in  certain  cases,  and  several  other  diseases. 


OF   LONDON  417 

the  Food  and  Drugs  Act  of  1875-99,  also  liable  to  inspection 
so  as  to  secure  that  they  should  not  be  adulterated ;  so  that 
theoretically,  and  in  a  very  great  measure  actually,  provision 
exists  for  protecting  the  people  of  London  from  adulterated 
articles  of  food,  and  from  food  unfit  for  human  con- 
sumption. 

All  this  is  an  immense  advance  upon  the  time  when  there 
were  no  laws  against  the  sale  of  unsound  or  adulterated 
food. 

But  there  is  great  room  for  improvement,  for  the 
inspection  and  means  of  prevention  are  far  from  adequate 
to  secure  the  protection  of  the  public  from  this  danger; 
indeed,  the  existing  system  of  government  for  dealing 
successfully  with  this  most  important  element  in  the  well- 
being  of  the  people  is  very  defective. 

The  experiences  of  the  past  sixty  years  or  so  in  London 
have  abundantly  shown  how  great  is  the  extent  to  which 
the  public  health  is  dependent  upon  the  system  of  local 
government  in  existence  at  the  time,  and  upon  the 
administration  of  the  laws  relating  to  the  public  health 
by  those  authorities. 

The  considerable  changes  which  have  taken  place  in  the 
fifty  years  since  the  creation  of  a  Central  Authority,  the 
Metropolitan  Board  of  Works,  have  been  described. 

So  far  as  regarded  the  local  authorities  over  the  separate 
areas  into  which  London  was  divided,  the  "  City  "  remains 
practically  as  it  was,  with  the  exception  of  the  addition  to 
its  sphere  of  action  of  the  important  duties  of  Port  Sanitary 
Authority,  and  such  further  powers  as  the  exigencies  of  the 
times  required,  and  certain  changes  consequent  upon 
the  creation  of  the  London  County  Council. 

In  the  metropolis  the  other  local  sanitary  authorities 
instead  of  being  Vestries  and  District  Boards — 43  in 
number — are  now  Municipal  Borough  Councils — 28  in 
number — with  some  larger  powers,  including  wide  powers 
of  rating. 

The  Poor  Law  Guardians,  also  with  wide  powers  of 
rating,  have  remained  much  as  they  were,  their  sphere  of 
work  being  a  definitely  limited  one. 

28 


418       THE  SANITARY  EVOLUTION 

Various  Commissioners,  such  as  the  Commissioners  of 
Baths  and  Washhouses,  Library  Commissioners,  and  Burial 
Boards,  have  ceased  to  be ;  their  powers  being  now 
exercised  by  the   Borough   Councils. 

The  important  changes  in  the  local  government  of  the 
metropolis  have  mainly  been  in  the  Central  Authorities, 
whose  sphere  of  duties  extends  over  the  whole  area  of 
London. 

The  principal  Central  Authority,  the  London  County 
Council,  which  superseded  the  Metropolitan  Board  of  Works 
in  1 1889,  instead  of  being  indirectly  elected  as  was  that  body, 
is  a  directly  elected  body,  elected  by  and  representative 
of  the  whole  electorate  of  London.  Its  duties  and  powers 
have  undergone  extension  and  increase ;  the  latest  material 
addition  to  them  being  its  appointment  as  the  Education 
Authority  for  London. 

In  1867,  owing  to  the  default  of  the  Vestries  and  District 
Boards  to  make  provision  of  rate-supported  hospitals-  for 
paupers  suffering  from  infectious  or  contagious  disease,  a 
Central  Authority — the  Metropolitan  Asylums  Board — 
constituted  on  the  indirectly  elected  system,  with  consider- 
able powers  to  spend  money  which  had  to  be  provided  out 
of  the  rates  of  the  metropolis,  was  created  to  do  that  work. 

In  1870  another  central  body  was  created,  the  London 
School  Board,  to  deal  with  the  elementary  education  of  the 
children  of  London,  and  though  not  a  health  authority,  its 
work  was  closely  associated  with  the  public  health.  It  also 
possessed  the  widest  powers  for  spending  money,  which  had 
to  be  provided  out  of  the  rates  of  the  metropolis.  It  was  a 
directly  elected  body,  but  elected  on  a  system  peculiar  to 
itself,  and  one  which  in  great  measure  removed  it  from  any 
financial  public  control. 

By  an  Act  of  Parliament  in  1903  the  London  County 
Council  was  made  the  Education  Authority  for  London, 
and  the  work  of  the  School  Board  was  transferred  to  it. 

To  the  two  existing  central  authorities  was  added,  in 
1903,  another  wholly  gratuitous  central  local  authority,  the 
Metropolitan  Water  Board,  an  indirectly  elected  body  with 
ultimate  rating  power  over  the  metropolis. 


I 


OF   LONDON  419 

There  is  a  third  sphere  of  government  in  matters  per- 
taining to  the  public  health — namely,  that  occupied  by  the 
State.  It  is  charged  with  many  duties  connected  with  the 
pubHc  health,  and  is  in  close  relationship  with  the  various 
central  and  local  authorities  in  London.  It  has  undergone 
large  changes  since  the  middle  of  the  last  century. 

At  that  time  some  of  the  powers  possessed  by  the  State 
Government  in  health  matters  were  exercised  by  one  of  the 
Secretaries  of  State.  Others,  for  some  years,  through  the 
General  Board  of  Health  appointed  by  the  Government. 
In  1858,  when  that  Board  ceased  to  exist,  some  of  its  powers 
were  transferred  to  the  Privy  Council,  others  lapsed  to  the 
local  sanitary  authorities. 

So  great,  as  time  went  on,  was  the  development  of  local 
government  throughout  the  country,  and  so  essential  was  it 
to  have  some  central  government  State  supervision  over  the 
largely  increased  number  of  local  sanitary  authorities,  that 
in  1871  a  new  Government  Department,  the  Local  Govern- 
ment Board,  was  created  to  perform  this  work.  To  it  were 
transferred  most  of  the  powers  in  connection  with  sanitation 
and  health  matters  possessed  by  the  State  Government,  and 
the  various  authorities  in  London  came  more  or  less  under 
its  supervision.  Since  then,  as  the  sanitary  needs  of  the 
community  grew,  and  as  legislation  became  more  volumi- 
nous, fresh  duties  have  been  constantly  imposed  upon  that 
Board. 

Summing  up  these  changes,  and  their  broad  effects,  it  is 
to  be  said  that  the  machinery  for  the  administration  of  the 
sanitary  laws  in  London  is  undoubtedly  far  more  potent  and 
effective  than  it  has  been  at  any  previous  time.  Instead  of 
the  Vestries  and  District  Boards  there  are  now  the  Borough 
Councils ;  instead  of  the  Metropolitan  Board  of  "Works  there 
is  the  London  County  Council ;  instead  of  the  Privy  Council 
and  Board  of  Health  there  is  the  Local  Government  Board, 
whilst  the  MetropoHtan  Asylums  Board  and  the  Water 
Board    had  no  predecessors. 

But  on  the  other  hand  the  system  now  in  existence  is 
very  complex,  and  in  many  ways  cumbersome,  and  in  recent 
years  there  has  been  a  most  unfortunate  tendency  on  the 


420       THE   SANITARY  EVOLUTION 

part  of  Parliament  to  revert  to  that  which  was  the  curse  of 
London  before  the  Act  of  1855 — the  multiplicity  of  local 
authorities — all  of  them,  too,  with  separate  rating  powers. 

So  far,  then,  in  the  way  of  the  machinery  of  local  govern- 
ment has  London  come  on  its  way  to  an  improved  condition 
of  the  public  health. 

And  Parliament,  as  has  been  narrated,  had,  since  1855, 
multiplied  the  health  laws,  which  these  bodies  were  charged 
with  the  administration  of.  Then,  the  passing  of  an  Act 
dealing  with  matters  affecting  the  public  health  was  so  rare 
as  to  constitute  a  remarkable  event.  Now  Acts  of  Parlia- 
ment and  " Provisionial  Orders"  as  to  health  matters  are 
quite  common  events. 

With  such  numerous  laws  covering  so  many  phases  of 
the  public  health,  with  so  much  larger  and  more  powerful 
a  machinery  for  their  administration,  the  crucial  point 
of  all  is  the  administration  of  those  laws  by  the  various 
authorities.  It  is  obvious  that  the  administration  is  much 
more  searching  and  effective  and  wide-reaching  than  it 
has  ever  been  before. 

The  Central  Authority,  the  London  County  Council,  has 
done  great  work,  as  has  already  been  shown,  in  extending  and 
maintaining  the  efficiency  of  the  drainage  system  of  London, 
in  the  clearance  of  insanitary  areas,  and  the  erection  of 
houses  for  the  working  classes ;  in  the  acquisition  of  open 
spaces,  in  great  street  improvements,  in  its  efforts  to  help 
towards  a  solution  of  the  great  housing  problem  by  the 
facilities  of  traffic  it  has  created  by  its  tramways,  in  the 
inquiries  it  has  instituted  into  the  insanitary  condition 
of  various  districts  in  London,  in  the  unifying  of  administra- 
tion by  the  local  sanitary  authorities,  and  in  many  other 
ways  too  numerous  to  be  recited.  It  has,  in  fact,  vigorously 
used  such  powers  as  it  possessed. 

The  Metropolitan  Asylums  Board  has  also  used  its  powers 
effectively,  having  erected  hospitals,  and  having  each  year 
successfully  isolated  and  treated  many  thousands  of  cases 
of  infectious  and  contagious  disease. 

The  Water  Board  is  still  too  young  to  have  a  record. 

The  Poor  Law  Guardians  had  improved  the  workhouses 


OF   LONDON  421 

and  the  infirmaries,  and  the  dispensaries  were  continuing 
to  do  their  useful  work. 

The  Metropolitan  Borough  Councils  were  grappling 
with  their  numerous  duties.  The  perusal  of  the  annual 
reports  of  these  bodies  shows  their  multiplicity.  House- 
to-house  inspection — the  inspection  of  factories  and  work- 
shops, and  workplaces,  and  outworkers;  of  bakehouses, 
cowsheds,  dairies,  and  milkshops ;  of  food  and  the  places 
where  food  is  prepared;  of  offensive  trades  and  slaughter- 
houses, and  of  houses  let  in  lodgings ;  the  management 
of  baths  and  wash-houses,  the  removal  of  dust  and  filth, 
disinfection,  proceedings  under  the  Housing  of  the  Working 
Classes  Acts;  measures  for  the  prevention  of  disease,  for 
the  abatement  of  nuisances,  and  many  other  duties  con- 
nected with  sewerage,  drainage,  and  paving  and  cleansing 
of  streets — all  and  every  one  of  which  closely  affect  the 
health  of  the  people. 

The  amount  of  work  done  varied  considerably.  In  a 
well-administered  municipality  the  number  of  Sanitary 
Inspectors  had  been  increased,  the  number  of  inspections 
was  high,  and  the  work  continuous  and  heavy.  In  some, 
however,  the  work  was  less  satisfactorily  done,  and  the 
old  Vestry  antipathy  to  the  expenditure  of  money  upon 
Inspectors  appeared  to  have  been  handed  on. 

Much,  nevertheless,  was  being  done,  and  on  the  whole 
matters  appeared  to  be  progressing  satisfactorily,  and  in 
many  respects  undoubtedly  were  doing  so. 

But  every  now  and  then  some  revelation  occurred  of 
insanitary  conditions  under  which  large  numbers  of  the 
people  were  living  which  showed  a  grievous  omission 
somewhere,  and  for  which  some  persons  were  responsible. 

Thus  when,  under  the  Education  (London)  Act  of  1903, 
the  County  Council  had  to  take  over  the  non-provided 
schools  in  London,  the  schools  were  inspected,  and  it  was 
found  that  their  drains  were  generally  in  a  very  bad 
condition.  No  fewer  than  342,  or  78  per  cent,  of  the  school 
drains  which  were  tested,  were  declared  unsatisfactory. 
A  most  prolific  source  of  disease  and  death  was  thus  laid 
bare,  a  source  which  for  years  must  have  been  working 


422      THE   SANITARY  EVOLUTION 

grave  evil — and  as  in  these  sclaools  there  were  about  135,000 
children  in  attendance,  the  number  of  persons  involved 
in  danger  was  enormous. 

Again,  some  of  the  figures  published  by  the  Census 
Commissioners  in  1902  disclosed  a  condition  of  things  of 
the  utmost  gravity. 

Similar  figures  in  the  census  of  1891  had  passed  almost 
unnoticed ;  these  of  1901  reiterated  the  story,  and  as  the 
evils  they  laid  bare  were  on  a  somewhat  smaller  scale  they 
were  hailed  more  as  a  mark  of  progress  and  improvement, 
than  as  something  portentous  in  themselves.  Yet  they 
go  down  to  the  very  roots  of  the  sanitary  condition  of  the 
people  of  London,  and  show  how  great  is  the  task  to  be 
accomplished  before  the  sanitary  condition  can  be  con- 
sidered satisfactory  or  even  safe. 

They  bring  into  sudden  view  the  fact  that  the  problem 
of  the  housing  of  the  people  is  still  unsolved. 

The  census  of  1901  had  recorded  that  there  were 
4,536,541  persons  in  London.  V,  also  recorded  that  the 
total  number  of  tenements  was  1,019,546.  It  further 
showed  that  of  these  tenements  no  fewer  than  672,030 
were  tenements  of  less  than  five  rooms ;  and  then  going 
into  details  of  these  672,030  tenements  it  showed  that — 

149,524  were  tenements  of  one  room. 
201,431      „  ,,  two  rooms. 

181,542      „  „  three    „ 

139,533      „  „  four     „ 

Comparing  these  figures  with  those  for  1891  it  appeared 
that — 

"A  marked  improvement  had  taken  place  in  the  manner 
in  which  persons  occupying  tenements  of  less  than  five 
rooms  are  housed  in  London,  The  shifting  of  the  popu- 
lation in  the  ten  years  from  the  tenements  of  one  or  two 
rooms  to  the  more  ample  accommodation  provided  in  tene- 
ments of  three  or  four  rooms  is  conspicuous."  * 

There  had  been  a  reduction  in  the  number  of  one-room 

*  See  Report  of  the  Medical  Ofi&cer  of  Health  of  the  London  County 
Council,  1902,  p.  10. 


OF   LONDON  423 

tenements,  which  are  justly  regarded  as  the  worst  of  all 
from  172,503  in  1891,  to  149,524  in  1901,  whilst  there  had 
been  an  increase  in  the  number  of  two,  three,  and  four- 
room  tenements. 

As  to  the  numbers  of  persons  living  in  these  672,030 
tenements — 

304,874  persons  lived  in  tenements  of  one  room. 
701,203      „  ,,  „  two  rooms. 

752,221      „  „  ,,  three  „ 

691,491      „  „  ,,  four    „ 


Total    2,449,789 

Still,  therefore,  well  over  half  the  population  of  London 
lived  in  tenements  of  less  than  five  rooms  ;  whilst  over 
1,000,000  lived  in  tenements  of  one  or  two  rooms — and 
between  one-  and  two-room  tenements  there  is  not  much  to 
differentiate. 

By  further  details  given  (as  in  1891)  each  Sanitary 
Authority  was  "  provided  with  the  means  of  examining 
with  much  precision  into  the  house  accommodation  of 
its  district." 

The  Medical  Officer  of  Health  for  the  Borough  of 
Finsbury,  utilising  the  figures  for  that  Borough,  deduced 
some  most  instructive  conclusions  as  to  the  effect  of  the 
one-room  and  two-room   tenements   upon  the  death-rates. 

Forty-six  per  cent,  of  the  population  lived  in  such  tene- 
ments ;  the  death-rate  in  one-room  tenements  was  38*9  per 
1,000 ;  the  death-rate  in  two-room  tenements  was  22*6  per 
1,000.  And  the  number  of  deaths  occurring  in  them  was  63 
per  cent,  of  all  the  deaths  in  the  Borough. 

**  The  conditions  of  life  obtaining  in  one-room  tenements," 
he  added,  "  are  such  as  tend  towards  poor  physique,  disease, 
and  death.  The  density  of  population  is  higher,  the  physical 
restrictions  are  greater,  and  there  is  less  fresh  air  and  more 
uncleanliness." 

The  information  thus  given  by  the  Census  Commissioners 
as  to  tenements  was  striking  enough,  but  of  deeper  interest 
and  import  even  than  these  figures  was  the  information  as 
to  "  Overcrowding." 


424      THE   SANITARY  EVOLUTION 

The  Medical  Officer  of  Health  for  the  London  County 
Council,  utilising  the  figures  of  the  census,  worked  out 
the  facts  as  regarded  the  overcrowded  tenement  population 
of  London. 

There  were  726,096  persons  living  in  an  overcrowded  state 
in  124,773  tenements  of  less  than  five  rooms.     Of  these — 

147,771  lived  in  40,762  one-room  tenements. 
296,659       „        50,304  two      „ 
187,619       „        23,979  three   „  „ 

94,047       „  9,728  four     „  „ 


726,096  124,773 

There  had  been  a  reduction  of  overcrowded  tenements 
from  145,513  in  1891,  containing  829,765  persons,  to 
124,773  in  1901,  containing  726,096  persons. 

There  would  appear  then  to  be  some  hope  that  the  acme 
or  climax  of  overcrowding  has  been  passed.  But  even 
from  the  most  sanguine  point  of  view  the  improvement 
is  not  great,  and  many  decades  would  have  to  elapse  before 
"  overcrowding  "  ceased  to  be  a  power  for  evil. 

A  few  illustrations  show  the  dreadful  condition  of  things 
in  this  respect  in  certain  localities. 

In  the  Borough  of  Finsbury,  over  35,000  persons  lived 
in  overcrowded  tenements  of  less  than  five  rooms ;  in 
Stepney,  99,000  ;  in  Islington,  56,000 ;  in  St.'Tancras,  56,000 ; 
in  Lambeth,  a  few  short  of  37,000 ;  and  in  Southwark,  over 
46,000. 

And  if  some  of  the  figures  about  overcrowding  were 
looked  into  a  little  more  minutely  it  was  to  be  seen  that 
in  St.  Marylebone  there  were  1,020  two-room  tenements 
inhabited  by  five  persons  each,  685  by  six  persons  each, 
366  by  seven  persons  each,  and  170  by  eight  persons  each. 

In  Islington  there  were  1,253  such  tenements  with  six 
persons  each,  624  with  seven  persons,  and  258  with  eight 
persons. 

In  St.  Pancras  there  were  1,414  two-room  tenements 
with  six  persons  in  each,  743  with  seven  persons  in  each, 
and  323  with  eight  in  each. 

In  Shoreditch  there  were  694  two-room  tenements  with 


OF  LONDON  425 

six  persons  in  each,  380  with  seven  in  each,  and  155  with 
eight  in  each. 

Stepney  was  the  worst  of  all — with  1,126  two-room 
tenements  with  seven  persons  in  each,  577  with  eight 
persons  in  each,  and  278  with  nine  persons  in  each;  but 
this  was  the  result  of  alien  immigration. 

In  Lambeth  there  were  699  tenements  of  two  rooms 
with  six  people  in  each,  and  322  similar  tenements  with 
seven  each,  and  118  with  eight  each. 

It  must  have  come  as  a  revelation  to  many  of  the 
Borough  Councils  to  find  such  a  condition  of  things  existing 
in  their  municipality. 

These  are  the  most  recent  reliable  figures.  Not  much 
change  can  have  taken  place  since  then,  and  they  may 
be  regarded  as  presenting  fairly  well  the  existing  condition 
of  the  housing  of  the  people  of  London. 

The  main  fact  emerging  from  them  is  that  a  population 
of  726,096  persons  in  London  are  living  in  124,733 
overcrowded  tenements  of  less  than  five  rooms. 

The  accumulated  testimony  of  the  most  experienced  and 
capable  observers  during  half  a  century  is  clear  and  precise 
that  overcrowding  is  disastrous  to  the  physical  welfare  of 
the  individual.  The  conditions  of  life  are  not  much  better 
in  one-  and  two-roomed  tenements,  and  the  conclusion  is 
thus  forced  upon  us  that,  speaking  broadly,  a  fifth  of  the 
population  of  London  are  at  present  living  in  circum- 
stances where  physical  well-being  is  impossible,  and  where 
even  a  moderate  standard  of  public  health  is  unattain- 
able. 

For  some  time  back,  fears  as  to  the  physical  deterioration 
of  certain  classes  of  the  population  have  found  public 
expression,  and  to  such  a  point  did  these  misgivings  come 
that,  in  1903,  a  Committee  was  appointed  by  the  Lord 
President  of  the  Council  to  inquire  into  the  subject  through- 
out the  kingdom. 

The  idea  of  physical  deterioration  being  at  work  found 
expression  sometimes  in  the  reports  of  the  Medical  Officers 
of  Health  even  far  back.  Thus,  in  1869,  the  Medical  Officer 
of  Health  for  Paddington  wrote  : — 


426      THE   SANITARY  EVOLUTION 

"  In  Paddington  overcrowding  in  its  worst  forms  cannot 
be  said  to  exist,  but  there  is  an  over-concentration  of 
building  which  will  some  day  be  considered  a  disgrace 
to  our  civilisation.  It  may  safely  be  predicted  that  besides 
a  high  infantile  death-rate  a  concomitant  deterioration  of 
race  will  result.  .  .  .  This  high  (infantile)  death-rate  is  not 
the  only  check  to  population.  Another  and  more  painful 
form  of  evil  manifests  itself  in  the  sickly  and  puny  race 
around  us.  Young  men  and  young  women  are  unable  from 
low  vitality  to  cope  with  their  contemporaries  in  the  labour 
market,  where  prolonged  muscular  exertion  is  required. 
We   find  in   this  class  the  seeds  of  debility  and  disease." 

In  1871  he  gave  a  table  with  particulars  of  five  hundred 
heads  of  famiHes  of  the  wage-earning  class  engaged  in 
industrial  occupations  living  in  tenement-houses  in  certain 
streets  near  the  Great  Western  Eailway  terminus.  "Sixty- 
four  per  cent,  were  bom  in  country  places.  This,"  he  added, 
"confirms  my  statement  in  former  reports  that  large 
numbers  of  men  born  in  cities  have  poor  constitutions 
and  deficient  vital  stamina,  who  cannot  cope  with  their 
competitors  from  the  country,  nor  command  the  best  labour 
markets  of  the  world.  In  the  struggles  of  town-life  large 
numbers  are  prematurely  crushed  out  at  early  periods  of 
their  existence." 

And  he  added :  "  This  deterioration  of  race  has  for  some 
time  been  recognised  by  Medical  Officers  of  Health." 

Unfortunately  the  conditions  of  life  conducive  to  dete- 
rioration did  not  cease  to  exist  in  1871,  as  evidenced 
by  the  figures  of  the  censuses  of  1891  and  1901,  of  the 
population  living  in  overcrowded  tenements  of  less  than 
five  rooms. 

The  Committee  reported  in  1904,  but  while  both  the 
Beport  and  the  evidence  are  of  great  interest,  it  cannot 
be  said  that  they  advanced  the  question  much. 

The  Committee  stated  that — 

"  There  are  no  sufficient  *  data'  at  present  obtainable  for 
a  comparative  estimate  of  the  health  and  physique  of 
the  people." 

That  being  undoubtedly  so,   the   best  light  obtainable 


OF   LONDON  427 

on  the  subject  must  be  sought  for  in  a  different  way. 
Fortunately  that  way  exists — and  it  is  possibly  the  soundest 
of  all — the  method  of  inference  from  well-established  facts. 

The  reports  of  the  Medical  Officers  of  Health  for  London 
during  the  last  half-century  enable  this  method  to  be  applied 
to  London. 

In  cases  innumerable  it  has  been  demonstrated  beyond 
dispute  that  the  death-rate  was  highest  in  overcrowded 
houses  or  localities,  that  the  sick-rate  was  proportionately 
higher,  that  disease  assumed  more  virulent  form  in  them, 
and  left  the  victim  in  a  more  impaired  condition. 

"It  is  almost  an  axiom  that  the  greater  the  crowding, 
the  greater  the  sickness  and  the  higher  the  death-rate." 

That  these  conditions  affect  the  health  and  stamina  of 
persons  of  all  ages,  and  more  especially  of  the  children  who 
are  to  constitute  the  new  generation,  is  a  truism,  and  thus 
the  health  and  stamina  of  a  large  proportion  of  the  population 
is,  of  necessity,  damaged  and  deteriorated,  and  a  heritage  of 
suffering  and  debility  passes  to  a  succeeding  generation. 
Were  these  evils  mere  passing  events  like  an  epidemic 
of  cholera  which  sweeps  away  its  thousands  of  victims  and 
is  gone,  the  results  would  not  be  so  disastrous. 

But  when  to  these  clearly  proved  facts  is  added  the  awful 
fact  that  these  evils  have  been  unceasingly  in  active 
operation  for  considerably  more  than  half  a  century,  that 
the  past  is  still  exerting  a  powerful  and  pernicious  effect 
upon  the  present,  and  that  the  seeds  of  evil  then  sown  are 
still  producing  a  deadly  crop,  it  is  a  necessary  and  unavoid- 
able conclusion  that  there  has  been  a  considerable  deteriora- 
tion of  race. 

Counteracting  these  deadly  forces  have  been  those  which 
have  been  described  in  this  book: — 

Efficient  sewerage  and  drainage,  water  supply  improved 
in  quantity  and  quality,  sounder  food,  wider  thoroughfares, 
cleaner  streets,  open  spaces,  new  dwellings,  prevention  of 
the  defilement  of  the  atmosphere,  prevention  of  the  spread 
of  infection — all  these,  together  with  better  knowledge  of 
health  matters,  the  vast  advance  in  medical  science,  the 
better   provision  for   the    treatment  of    the  sick,  greater 


428       THE   SANITARY  EVOLUTION 

temperance,  and  the  great  work  carried  on  by  numerous 
philanthropic  workers  and  organisations,  have  effected  vast 
improvement — an  improvement  testified  to  in  the  fall  in  the 
death-rate  of  London  from  23-38  per  1,000  in  1851  to  ITl  in 
1901  since  which  year  it  has  further  decreased. 

Painfully  and  laboriously,  and  in  the  face  of  persistent 
obstruction  and  hostility,  has  the  present  sanitary  position 
been  attained.  "  Vested  rights  in  filth  and  dirt "  have 
offered  a  prolonged  and  dogged  fight  against  reforms  which 
curtailed  their  privileges.  Hundreds  of  thousands  of  lives 
have  been  needlessly  cast  away,  an  uncountable  number 
blighted  and  made  useless  by  diseases  which  were  prevent- 
able, and  which  were  not  prevented,  and  an  incalculable 
injury  inflicted  upon  the  community. 

And  the  expense  to  the  community  has  been  enormous. 
Millions  upon  millions  of  money  have  had  to  be  spent  to 
make  good — so  far  as  could  be  made  good — the  ravages 
of  past  neglect  and  culpable  management.  Millions  upon 
drainage,  upon  hospitals,  upon  houses  for  the  working 
classes,  upon  open  spaces — tens  of  millions  upon  water 
supply,  and  most  unjustifiable  and  regrettable  of  all,  millions 
to  compensate  slum  owners  for  their  iniquities. 

And  even  yet  we  have  not  arrived  at  our  goal.  "What, 
then,  are  still  the  causes  of  failure?  What  the  impediments? 
WTiere  the  shortcomings  ? 

The  failure  is  in  part  due  to  a  great  omission  by  Parlia- 
ment— in  part  to  the  non-administration  of  existing  laws 
by  local  authorities — in  part  to  a  great  defect  in  the  system 
of  local  government. 

Parliament  had,  most  unfortunately,  omitted  from  all  its 
enactments  affecting  London  any  provision  for  the  super- 
vision of  the  great  movement  in  part  economic,  in  part 
social,  which  has  been  going  on  in  London  for  well-nigh 
two-thirds  of  a  century —namely,  the  change  of  houses 
inhabited  by  one  family  into  tenement-houses,  or  houses 
inhabited  by  several  families. 

That  movement  with  its  appalling  attendant  evils  was 
allowed  to  go  on  practically  unregulated,  uncontrolled, 
and  unsupervised. 


OF   LONDON  '  429 

The  great  evil  of  this  movement  was,  that  a  house  which 
had  been  structurally  and  sanitarily  designed  for  one  family 
was  sanitarily  unsuited  for  its  altered  career  as  the  abode  of 
several  families.  Nothing  was  done  to  obviate  this  evil. 
And  so  these  houses  became  packed  with  people  and  families 
who  had  to  live  in  one  or  two  rooms  in  them  without  the 
primary  necessities  of  a  healthy  existence — without  venti- 
lation— without  an  adequate  supply  of  water — without 
facilities  for  cooking  food — with  the  scantiest  and  filthiest 
sanitary  accommodation — had  to  live  under  conditions 
which  put  a  high  premium  upon  dirt  and  insanitation,  and 
which  absolutely  invited  disease  and  death. 

Even  the  Sanitary  Act  of  1866,  and  its  amending  Act  of 
1874,  did  not  deal  with  this  crucial  matter;  and  no  legal 
obligation  was  created  by  Parliament  to  ensure  that  the 
houses  undergoing  such  a  change  should  be  adapted  to  their 
altered  circumstances. 

The  Sanitary  Act  of  1866  only  in  part  dealt  with  the 
evils  inherent  in  such  houses.  It  imposed  on  the  Sanitary 
Authority  the  duty  of  making  regulations  which  prescribed 
a  standard  of  the  air  space  for  each  person,  and  thus  made 
an  effort  to  prevent  overcrowding ;  it  imposed  upon  the 
"owner"  the  duty  of  maintaining  a  certain  standard  of 
cleanliness — the  rooms  were  to  be  painted  or  lime- whitened 
every  year — it  laid  upon  the  tenants  certain  duties  also 
as  to  maintaining  cleanliness. 

But  even  this  imperfect  legislation  was  completely 
brought  to  naught  by  the  opposition  of  the  "Vestries  and 
District  Boards  to  such  action  as  would  have  secured  at  any 
rate  some  degree  of  decent  accommodation  in  the  tenement- 
houses  of  London. 

By  the  PubHc  Health  Act,  1891,  the  London  County 
Council  was  empowered  to  make  bye-laws  enforcing  a 
certain  standard  of  sanitary  accommodation  in  them,  and 
did  make  them.  But  in  other  respects  nothing  was  done ; 
and  so  the  process  still  goes  on,  large  numbers  of  houses 
hitherto  occupied  by  one  family  are  passing  into  the  occupa- 
tion of  several  families  devoid  of  the  primary  necessaries  of 
a  healthy  existence.     The    great    movement    has    by  no 


430      THE   SANITARY  EVOLUTION 

means  spent  its  force;  for  long  to  come  houses  will  be 
going  through  this  transition,  and  until  legislation  deals 
definitely  with  this  matter  the  inevitable  evils  attendant  on 
the  change  will  continue. 

The  second  main  cause  of  failure  lies  at  the  door  of  the 
local  authorities  who  would  not  and  did  not  administer  the 
existing  laws. 

The  local  governing  authorities  are  now  more  active  than 
they  have  ever  been  before ;  the  amount  of  work  done  in 
every  branch  of  sanitation  is  far  greater  than  ever  before ; 
the  number  of  Sanitary  Inspectors  has  been  increased  from 
188  in  1893  to  313  in  1904.  But  the  regulations  or 
bye-laws  under  the  Act  of  1891  which  Parliament  had 
imperatively  directed  them  to  make  and  to  use  as  regarded 
the  tenement-houses  in  London,  are  very  far  from  being 
enforced  to  the  extent  they  should  be. 

The  total  number  of  houses  let  in  lodgings  which  were  on 
the  various  registers  in  1905  was  22,257. 

With  only  a  few  exceptions  the  Borough  Councils,  like 
their  predecessors  the  Vestries,  make  comparatively  little 
use  of  this  power,  though  there  is  a  concurrent  mass  of 
testimony  as  to  the  beneficial  results  following  its  use. 
Stepney,  under  the  inrush  of  aliens,  found  the  benefit  of 
exercising  the  power,  and  heads  the  list  with  2,672  houses 
on  the  register.  Kensington  has  2,107;  "Westminster  1,641; 
St.  Pancras  2,192 ;  Hammersmith  2,266 ;  and  Finsbury 
1,169.  These  amount  to  12,047,  or  10  per  cent,  of  all  the 
inhabited  houses  in  those  six  boroughs.  In  the  whole  of 
the  rest  of  London  with  451,596  inhabited  houses,  only 
10,207  of  the  houses  let  in  lodgings  are  registered :  so  that 
only  2J  per  cent,  of  the  houses  in  them,  as  against  10  per 
cent,  in  the  others,  are  registered. 

It  is  manifest,  therefore,  how  imperfectly  the  greater 
number  of  even  the  present  local  authorities  perform  the 
duty  which  has  been  imperatively  imposed  upon  them  by 
Parliament. 

The  Borough  of  Shoreditch,  for  instance,  with  22,940 
tenements  of  less  than  five  rooms,  of  which  6,269  were  over- 
crowded with  35,500  persons  living  in  them,  has  only  283  of 


OF  LONDON  431 

the  houses  let  in  lodgings  on  the  register.  The  Borough  of 
Lambeth  with  44,495  tenements  of  less  than  five  rooms, 
of  which  6,548  were  overcrowded  with  36,900  people  living 
in  them,  had  only  372  houses  on  the  register.  The  Borough 
of  Bermondsey  with  over  25,000  persons  living  in  over- 
crowded tenements  had  only  221  houses  on  the  register. 

This,  as  has  been  explained  (see  p.  377),  is  not  a  matter  in 
which  the  Central  Authority,  the  London  County  Council, 
has  any  authority  to  interfere.  The  Borough  Councils  are 
their  own  masters  in  this  matter,  as  were  their  predecessors 
the  Vestries,  and  the  responsibility  as  to  administering  or 
not  administering  in  their  areas  the  Act  of  Parliament 
rests  entirely  with  them.  The  consequences  of  the  non- 
administration  of  these  bye-laws  to  the  health  and  physical 
well-being  of  great  masses  of  the  people  are  disastrous. 

"Various  legal  decisions  in  recent  years  have  somewhat 
impeded  the  effective  administration  of  the  bye-laws  in  this 
matter,  but  the  real  impediment  is  the  dislike  to  them  of 
the  Borough  Councils. 

The  condition  of  the  vast  tenement-house  population  in 
this  great  city  is  of  such  immeasurable  consequence  to  the 
community  at  large  that  matters  can  only  be  allowed  to 
continue  in  their  present  most  unsatisfactory  state  at  the 
most  dire  cost.  The  sooner  it  is  thoroughly  inquired  into 
by  Parliament  and  drastically  dealt  with  the  better;  great 
evils  will  be  stayed,  great  benefits  will  be  secured. 

The  third  principal  cause  of  failure  to  attain  a  higher 
level  of  the  pubHc  health  in  London  than  at  present 
enjoyed  has  been  the  want  of  a  real  central  Health 
Authority.  The  Metropohtan  Board  of  Works  was  never 
such.  The  London  County  Council  is  only  such  in  a  very 
limited  way.  A  real  central  Health  Authority  for  London 
is  an  absolute  necessity — that  is  the  great  moral  to  be 
drawn  from  the  history  of  the  last  half-century  so  far  as 
local  government  in  health  matters  in  London  is  concerned. 

Disease  recognises  no  boundaries,  and  in  a  great  city  like 
London  it  is  essential  that  in  so  vital  a  matter  as  the  pubUc 
health  full  authority  should,  subject  to  Parliament,  be 
vested  in  one  supreme  authority — a  central  authority  which 


432       THE   SANITARY  EVOLUTION 

shall  secure  uniformity  of  administration ;  a  central 
authority  which  shall  be  able  to  compel  a  local  authority 
in  London  to  do  that  which  if  it  neglects  is  a  danger  to  the 
community  ;  a  central  authority  which,  in  the  event  of  such 
neglect,  shall  be  authorised  itself  to  undertake  that  work ;  a 
central  authority  which  shall  be  able  to  act  at  once  for 
London  as  a  whole  in  presence  of  any  sudden  or  great 
emergency — that  is  absolutely  essential  for  the  sanitary 
safety  of  this  great  city  and  of  the  millions  who  live  in  it. 

The  want  of  such  an  authority  has  throughout  the  whole 
sanitary  evolution  of  London  been  a  disaster  of  the  greatest 
magnitude,  and  is  an  ever-present  peril  to  this  great 
metropolis.  The  existence  now  of  a  central  popularly 
elected  representative  body  for  the  metropolis  would  render 
this  reform  quite  a  simple  matter. 

Further  measures  are  also  required  to  aid  in  the  removal 
of  the  worst  of  London  evils. 

In  1903  a  Eoyal  Commission  was  appointed  to  inquire 
into  the  means  of  locomotion  and  transport  in  London.  It 
reported  in  1905,  having  done  its  work  more  thoroughly 
than  even  most  Eoyal  Commissions  do  their  work. 

A  great  portion  of  its  report  deals  directly  or  indirectly 
with  the  sanitary  condition  of  the  people  of  London. 

"  The  question  of  locomotion,"  said  the  Commissioners, 
"  affects  the  health,  comfort,  and  efficiency  for  work  of  the 
whole  community.  .  .  . 

"Witnesses  who  have  special  knowledge  of  the  subject 
are  of  opinion  that  the  remedy  for  overcrowding  is  to  be 
found  in  the  removal  of  the  people  to  outside  districts  by 
providing  additional  facilities  for  locomotion,  and  in  this 
opinion  we  agree.  .  .  . 

"  We  have  come  to  the  conclusion  that  in  order  to  relieve 
overcrowding  means  must  be  provided  for  taking  the 
population  into  and  out  of  London,  not  in  one  or  two 
directions  but  in  many  directions,  at  rapid  speed,  frequent 
intervals,  and  cheap  rates." 

To  this  recommendation  of  the  Commission  it  should  be 
added  that  means  must  be  devised  for  preventing  in  "  outer 
London  "  a  repetition  of  those  circumstances  and  conditions 


OF  LONDON  433 

of  life  which,  for  more  than  half  a  century,  entailed  such 
sufferings  and  evils  upon  the  people  of  London. 

In  reviewing  the  principal  events,  and  studying  the 
powerful  underlying  forces  of  the  great  movement  of  the 
sanitary  evolution  of  London,  the  bitter  experiences  of  the 
time  gone  by  would  indeed  have  been  in  vain  if  they  did 
not  point  the  way  to  an  avoidance  of  past  blunders  and 
iniquities,  and  towards  a  better  and  happier  future  for  the 
people.  The  lines  upon  which  reform  should  move 
gradually  become  apparent  as  the  events  unroll  themselves  ; 
and  the  measures  now  to  be  taken  evolve  and  shape  them- 
selves from  the  successes  and  failures  of  the  past. 

The  reforms  just  suggested  are  undoubtedly  those  which 
are  most  imperatively  necessary.  The  whole  experience  of 
the  past  justifies  the  belief  that  they  would  soon  work  a 
great  change  for  the  better  in  the  physical,  mental,  and 
moral  conditions  of  life  of  large  masses  of  the  people  of 
London.  And  from  improved  and  healthier  homes  would 
come  to  the  people  increased  comforts  and  happiness,  and 
more  physical  energy  and  greater  strength  to  fulfil  the  duties 
of  their  lives,  and  to  meet  whatever  demands  the  future 
may  make  upon  them  and  upon  our  nation. 

The  strength  and  even  the  existence  of  a  nation  depend 
upon  the  health  of  its  masses.  The  stake  at  issue  is  a  vital 
one  to  people  and  nation ;  and  now  more  than  ever  is  it 
necessary  that  the  health  and  vigour  of  our  race  should  be 
maintained  at  the  highest  possible  attainable  standard. 


29 


INDEX 


Adultebation  op  Food  Act,  1860, 

182-4 
Aldwych,  413 

Allison,  Dr.,  evidence  quoted,  28 
Alteration   of  Food  and  Drink  and 

Drugs  Act,  1872,  238 
Artizans'  and  Labourers'   Dwellings 

Act,  186S,  212-3,  254-5,  282 
Artizans'   and  Labourers'  Dwellings 

Improvement    Act,     1875,    256-8, 

264  ;  Amendment  Act,   1879,  265, 

292-5 
Avery  Hill,  414 


Bakehouses,  171-2,  275,  374,  381-2, 

404 
Bakehouse  Regulation  Act,  1863, 183, 

275 
Balfour,  Rt.  Hon.  A.  J.,  396-7 
Ball,  Decimus,  323 
Ballard,  Dr.,  252 
Barnett,  Canon,  294 
Bateson,  Dr.  Henry,  reports  quoted, 

150,  286-7 
Baths  and  Wash-houses,  39, 126,  252 
Baths  and  Wash-houses  Act,  1846, 

39  252 
Battersea,  98,  177,  203,  229,  284,  392 
Beaconsfield,  Lord,  287 
Beale,  James,  186 
Bedfordbury,  259-60 
Bermondsey,  17,  23,  98,  116, 144, 177, 

188,   220,   250-1,  300,  309,  332-3, 

347-8,  354,  431 
Bethnal  Green,  46-7,  74,  97, 103, 108, 

120,  129,  138,  145,  177,  188,  190, 

202,  219,  222,  268,  288,  291,  293, 

303,  308-10,  333-4,  353,  364,  375, 

383,  386-7,  393 
Billingsgate  Market,  416 
Birth-rate,  decline  of,  350,  402-3 


Bloomsbury,  314 

Boundary  Street  Area,  364 

Bow,  393 

Bristowe,  Dr.  J.  S.,  400 

BrockweU  Park,  414 

Bromley,  159 

Building  Act,  1844,  30,  164 

Burial  grounds,   35-7,  54-5,  64,  67, 

281,  309-10 
Burnett,  J.,  report  quoted,  335 
Burnham  Beeches,  414 


Camberwell,  98,  104,  137,  144,  155, 
190,  219,  222,  267,  288,  291,  305, 
809,  384,  354,  406 

Census  of  1851,  56,  410 ;  of  1861, 155- 
7 ;  of  1371,  221-2  ;  of  1881,  288-9 ; 
of  1891,  349-52 ;  of  1896,  379  ;  of 
1901,  401-2,  422 

Central  Health  Authority  needed, 
195-6,  277-8,  431-2 

Cesspools,  18,  51,  104,  128,  159,  229 

Chadwick,  Edwin,  47 

Chamberlain,  Rt.  Hon.  Joseph,  293, 
308 

Cheap  Trains  Act,  1863,  362 

Chelsea,  98, 141,  197-8,  255,  267, 288, 
354 

Children's  Employment,  Commis- 
sion on, 210-1 

Cholera  epidemics,  of  1832,  2,  46 ;  of 
1848,  45-6  ;  of  1849,  46-9,  63 ;  of 
1853,   72-5,   164;  of   1866,   189-92 

Chichester,  Bishop  of,  speech  in  1850, 
66 

"Christopher  Court,"  Whitechapel, 
28 

"  City,"  the,  its  commercial  char- 
acter, 7-9 ;  its  government,  9,  417  ; 
its  sanitary  condition,  50;  its 
declining    population,    94-5,    155, 


435 


436       THE   SANITARY  EVOLUTION 


222,  224,  288,  352,  401-2;  con- 
struction of  business  premises,  367, 
894 ;  Amalgamation  Committee, 
396 

Clare  Market  scheme,  364 

Clerkenwell,  22, 74, 97, 102-3, 109, 115, 
120,  124,  126,  185,  245,  261-2,  288, 
303,  307-8,  314,  321,  323,  333,  353, 
355 

Common  lodging  houses,  67,  132, 
145,  253;  erected  by  L.C.C.,  366, 
410 

Common  Lodging  Houses  Act,  1851, 
67,  132 

Commons,  acquisition  of,  206,  282 

Compulsory  Vaccination  Act,  1867, 
208 

Consumption,  146,  170 

Contagious  Diseases  Animals  Act,  of 
1869,  237 ;  of  1878,  275-6 

Coulsdon  Common,  414 

Cowhouses  and  dairies,  275,  318 

Cremation  Act,  1902,  409 

Cripplegate,  165 

Cross,  Sir  R.  A.,  256 

Customs  and  Inland  Revenue  Act, 
1890,  344-5 


Density  of  building,  25,  28,  98, 
203,  329-30 

Deptford,  74,  347 

Derby,  Lord,  165 

Dickens,  Charles,  on  burial  grounds, 
36  ;  speech  in  1850,  65 

Dilke,  Sir  Charles,  308 

Diphtheria,  146,  386 

Diseases  Prevention  Act,  1848,  79, 
152 

Diseases  Prevention  (Metropolis)  Act, 
1883,  318-9 

Disinfection,  194,  248,  252,  358,  385 

Dispensaries,  389 

District  Boards  created,  83-9 ;  in- 
efficiency and  inactivity,  183-7, 
267-73,  301-8,  321-2,  398-9; 
abolition,  398-9 

Drunkenness  connected  with  over- 
crowding and  insanitation,  130, 
142-3,  157-8,  176,  263,  391-2 

Dunraven,  Lord,  336-7 


East  London  Water  Co.,  106, 191-2 
Education  (London)  Act,  1903,  406, 

421 
Elementary    Education    Act,    1870, 

219,  346 
Epping  Forest,  414 


Factories,  overcrowding  in,  113, 
173-4,  193,  334-7;  Royal  Com- 
mission of  1876,  274;  need  of 
inspection,  373-4 

Factory  Act  of  1864,  183;  of  1867, 
210-1;  of  1878,  274-5;  of  1891, 
370;  of  1901,  403-4 

Farr,  Dr.  W.,  189 

Fever,  prevalence  of,  4,  32-4  ;  con- 
nection with  cholera,  47 

Finsbury,  16,  314-5,  423-4,  430 

Finsbury  Park,  206 

Plight,  323-4 

Porster,  W.  E.,  speech  quoted,  242 

Fulham,  98,  100-1,  112,  115,  131, 
159-61,  166-7,  191,  204,  214,  219, 
222,  226,  228,  252,  288,  307,  374, 
380,  393,  401-2 


Gladstone,  W.  E.,  312 

Godwin,  George,  173,  181 

Goulston  Street  scheme,  293 

Grainger,  Dr.,  evidence  quoted,  48-9 

Granville,  Lord,  165 

Gray's  Inn  Road,  295 

Greenwich,  17,  74,  98,  101,  124,  222, 

309,  332 
Grey,  Sir  G.,  70 

Griffith,  Dr.  J.,  evidence  quoted,  21-2 
Grosvenor,  Lord  Robert,  66 


Hackney,  17,  97,  100,  103, 117,  123, 

136,  179,  190, 197-8,  222,  228,  230, 

267,  288,  309,  334,  373,  393,  401 
Hackney  Marsh  acquired,  414 
Hainault  Forest,  414 
Hall,  Sir  Benjamin,  73 
Hammersmith,  101,   204,  226,  383, 

430 
Hampstead,  97,  100,  125,  351,  375 
Hampstead  Heath  acquired,  206 
Harcourt,  Sir  William,  311 
Hickson,  W.  E.,  evidence  quoted,  26 
Holborn,  97,  123,  127,  155,  164, 170, 

255,  314,  353-4 
Homsey,  351 
Hospitals    for    infectious    diseases, 

209-10,  283,  318-9,  387-8 
Hospitals,  voluntary,  390 
Houses,  defective  building  of,  227-9, 

232,  273 
Housing  of  the  Working  Classes  Act 

of  1885,  325-6;  of  1890,  342,  363-6, 

398 
Housing   of    the    Working   Classes 

Commission,  317,  319,  321-5 
Hunter,  Dr.,  185-6 


OF  LONDON 


437 


Immigbation  into  London,  156,  221, 

225-6,  288-91,  336,  349,  402 
Infectious  and  contagious   diseases, 

194,  208-9,  239-40,  263,  266,  276, 

283,  318-9,  343-4,  357,  385-8,  403, 

407-8 
Infectious  Diseases  Notification  Act, 

1889,  342-3 
Inspectors  of  Nuisances,  86, 91, 188-9, 

193-4,  307-9,  324-5,   334-5,    358; 

their  insufficient  number,  379-80, 

382-3 
Islington,  97,  99,  108,  120,  127,  155, 

177,   180,    188,    201,    222,   224-5, 

279-80,  288,  351,  355,  374,  380-1, 

392-3,  424 


Jacob's  Island,  foul  water  in,  23 
Jewish  sanitary  laws,  143,  146,  149 


Kenry,  Loed,  371 

Kensington,  98-9,  105,  121,  188,  219, 

222,  225,  230,  278-9,  288,  355,  376, 

383,  430 
Kingsway,  413 


Labouring  Classes  Lodging  Houses 

Act  of  1851,  69-70,  326 ;  of  1867, 

326 
Lakeman,  371 
Lambeth,  12, 17,  30,98,  103,105, 116, 

122-4,  155,  188,   203,    222,   251-2, 

267, 300,  309,  352, 354-5,  375,  424-5, 

431 
Lambeth  Water  Company,  73 
Lancet,     The,    description    of    the 

Thames,  77 
Lankester,  Dr.,  189 
Laundries,  public,  126 
Lea  Conservancy  Board,  208 
Lewisham,  98, 102,  144 
Liddle,  Dr.  J.,  399 
Limehouse,  97-8,  111,  120,  163,  188, 

251,  258,  279,  393 
Little   Coram    Street,    Bloomsbury, 

262-3 
Local  government  of  the  "City,"  9; 

of  Greater  London,  11-4 ;  lack  of 

central  authority,  13 ;   Act  passed 

in  1855,  82 
Local  Government  Board  Act,  1871, 

232-3,  419 
Local    Government    (England    and 

Wales)  Act,  1894,  382 
Locomotion,      additional     facilities 

needed,  432 


London,  Bishop  of,  speech  in  1850, 
64 

London  County  Council  created, 
338-9 ;  powers  given  by  Public 
Health  Act,  1891,  359-61 ;  and  by 
Housing  Act,  1890,  363-6  ;  con- 
stituted education  authority,406-9, 
418 ;  summary  of  its  work,  420 

London  Fever  Hospital  Eeport,  1845, 
32 

London  Government  Act,  1899, 396-7 

London  Government  BUI,  1884, 311-3 

Lynch,  Dr.  J.,  33-4,  261 


Maeylebone.     See  St.  Marylebone 
Measles,  408 

Meat,  inspection  of  imported,  318 
Medical    Officers    of    Health,    their 

duties,  86,  91,  96 ;   their  reports, 

92-3  ;    their   treatment    by   local 

authorities,    189 ;    their    labours, 

399-400 
Metropolis  Local  Management  Act, 

1855,  82,  110,  185 
Metropolis    Turnpike    Trusts    Act, 

1828,  24 
Metropolis  Water  Act,  1862,  71,  160, 

191 
Metropolitan    Asylums  Board,   210, 

418,  420 
Metropolitan  Board  of  Works  consti- 
tuted, 83-5 ;  abolished,  337-41 
Metropolitan  Building  Act  of  1844, 

24,    76;    of    1856,    88,    164,    204, 

231 
Metropolitan  Burials  Act,  1852,  55 
Metropolitan  Gas  Act,  1860,  184 
Metropolitan  Markets  Act,  1851,  247, 
Metropolitan  Paving  Act,  1817,  12, 

24 
MetropoUtan  Poor  Act,  1867,  208-10 
Metropolitan    Sanitary    Association, 

106 
Metropolitan     Sewers    Commission, 

evidence  before,  18-9 
Metropolitan     Water     Amendment 

Act,  1871,  233-5 
Metropolitan   Water   Board,  405-6, 

418,  420 
Middlemen,  323-4 
Midwives  Act,  1902,  409 
Mile-End-Old-Town,  97,  99,  131,  163, 

166,  227,  278,   288,  309,  333,  347, 

383 
Milk  trade,  275,  318 
Millbank  estate,  366 
«  Model  dwellings,"  868-70 
Morpeth,  Lord,  43-4 


438       THE   SANITARY  EVOLUTION 


Mortality,  in  the  fifties,  120-1, 129-30, 
144-5,  148, 150 ;  in  the  sixties,  153, 
156,  176-8,  191,  219-20,  223 ; in  the 
seventies,  263,  278-81,  283  ;  in  the 
eighties,  292, 346-8 ;  in  the  nineties, 
350-1,  364,  392-3,  402 

Mortuaries,  252,  358 

Municipal  Corporations  Act,  1835, 
78 

Municipal  Councils,  created,  397-8, 
417  ;  their  work,  421 

Munro,  J.,  400 


National  AsaooiATioN  fob  Peo- 
MOTiNG  Social  Science,  181 

New  Oxford  Street  formed,  29 

New  Eiver  Company,  20 

Newington,  12,  98, 101,  115,  122,  124, 
144,  155,  185,  190,  214,  220,  224, 
248,  250,  285,  309, 347,  354,  376 

Notting  Dale,  121,  177 

Noxious  trades,  37-8,  53-4,  87, 114-7, 
145-8,  246-7,  252,  415 

Nuisances  Act,  1846,  39-40,  45 

Nuisances  Eemoval  and  Diseases 
Prevention  Act,  1855,  82-3,  86, 117, 
415 


OvEECEOWDiNG,  in  the  forties,  29-34  ; 
in  the  fifties,  55-6, 107-14, 119, 127, 
133-4,  145  ;  legislation  against,  87, 
147-9,  193-4,  197 ;  in  the  sixties, 
165-77,  198-200,  202-3;  in  the 
seventies,  224-5,  243-6  ;  in  the 
eighties,  313-6, 332-3 ;  in  the  nine- 
ties, 354-6,  371,  375-6  ;  in  1901, 
422-6 


Paddington,  98,  100,  102,  123,  155, 
163, 168, 180-1, 184, 188,  201,  203-4, 
220,  222,  224,  226,  248-9,  252,  279, 
288,  290,  309,  376,  407-8,  425-6 

Palmerston,  Lord,  75 

Parks  and  recreation  grounds,  122, 
206,  282,  414 

Pauperism,  139 

Paving  boards  in  middle  of  nine- 
teenth century,  12 

Peabody  Trustees,  265,  296 

Pear  Tree  Court,  Clerkenwell,  261 

Pennethorne,  J.,  28 

PhiUips,  J.,  19 

Physical  deterioration,  426-7 

Plumstead,  98,  267 

Poor  Law  Act  of  1879,  283 ;  of  1889, 
344 


Poor  Law  Guardians,  407 

Poplar,  97,  120,  123,  126,  155,   190, 

199,  222,  227,  230,  254,  279,  284, 

288,  300,  309,  331,  376,  393 
Population,     growth    of,    9-10,    80, 

155-7,  221-5,  288-9,  349-52,  401-2, 

410 
Port  of  London  Sanitary  Authority, 

239-41,  283,  317-8,  416 
Printing  works,  172-3 
Privy  Council,  medical  department 

of,  152,  171 
Public   Health  Act    of    1848,   51-2, 

79 ;  of  1858,  152 
Public  Health  (London)  Act,  1891, 

356-60,    385,  408,    412-3,    415-6, 

429-30 
Purvis,  W.,  237-8 


Redesdale,  Loed,  165 

Registrar  -  General's     Report    after 

census  of  1861,  154 
Rendell,  Dr.  William,  142-50,  175, 

186-7,  189 
Ritchie,  0.  T.,  338,  359 
RodweU,  Hunter,  271 
Rosebery,  Earl  of,  341 
Rotherhithe,  17,  36,  74,  98,  101,  105, 

108,  114,  116,  117,  144,  177,   206, 

220,  252,  280-1,  333-4 
Ross,  323 

Russell,  Lord  John,  66 
Russell  Court,  Drury  Lane,  burial 

ground  in,  36 


St.    Geoege,    Hanover    Square,  98, 

137,  188,  212,  288,  351 
St.    George-in-the-East,   102-3,   106, 

120,  233,  253,  278,  288,  303,  352-4, 

391   393 
St.  Giles',  28,  68,  97,  99,   100,  105, 

108-10,    113,   124,   130,   139,    168, 

176,  178,  191,   199-200,   224,   250, 

252,  255,  260,  262-3,  305,  313-4, 

375-6 
St.  James',  Westminster,  97-8,  102, 

109,  125,  130,  155,  170, 179, 189-90, 

222-3,  249-52,  256,  272,  288,  290, 

352,  369,  394 
St.   Luke,   97,   108,   219,    231,   255, 

293,    314,     334,     353,     355,    364, 

368 
St.    Martin-in-the-Fields,    97,    102, 

129,  155,  161,  214,  352 
St.  Marylebone,  30,  97,  100,  105,  124, 

181,  188,  222,  225,  232,  250,  280, 

288,  299,  309,  354,  369,  374 


OF  LONDON 


439 


St.  Pancras,  97,  108,  115,  125-6, 
128-9,  132,  155,  164,  169,  175,  188, 
256,  268,  273,  279,  299,  304,  309, 
348,  353,  367,  424,  430 

Salisbury,  Marquess  of,  317, 322, 325-6 

Sandhurst,  Lord,  837 

Sanitary  Act,  1866,  193,  199-202, 
217-8,  254,  266,  300,  302,  324,  429 

Sanitary  Law  Amendment  Act,  1874, 
266,  305,  429 

Scarlet  fever,  249,  386,  415 

Schools,  overcrowding  in,  113-4,  174, 
244-6  ;  defective  drainage  in,  421-2 

School  Board  for  London,  283-4,  292, 
313-5,  406-7,  418 

Scrofula,  58,  170 

Sewers,  early  statutes  relating  to, 
14  ;  glaring  inefficiency  in  the 
forties,  15-7  ;  in  the  City  in  the 
fifties,  50-1,  60 ;  plan  adopted  by 
the  M.B.W.,  90-1;  medical  offi- 
cers' reports  in  1856, 100-3  ;  atten- 
tion paid  by  Vestries  and  District 
Boards,  123,  249-51  ;  M.B.W.'s 
scheme  carried  out,  158-9,  281, 
411 ;  L.C.C.'s  report,  411-2 

Sewers,  Commissioners  of,  before  Act 
of  1848,  their  authority,  9,  11,  15 ; 
their  incapacity,  15-7 ;  after  Act 
of  1848,  41-2  ;  superseded,  84 

Shaftesbury  (Ashley),  Lord,  32,  47, 
64,  66,  165,  174,  176,  274,  307,  366 ; 
carries  Act  to  regulate  common 
lodging  houses,  67-8 ;  Labouring 
Classes  Lodging  Houses  Act,  69 

Shops,  172 

Shoreditch,  37,  97,  105,  111-2,  120, 
166,  188,  228,  251,  267,  288,  309, 
353,  355,  368,  380-1,  393,  425,  430 

Simon,  Dr.  John,  50-62,  120,  171, 
192,  215-7,  248,  286 

Simpson,  W.,  29 

Slaughter-houses,  247 

Small-pox,  38-9,  146, 150,  208, 235-6, 
269,  319,  386,  403 

Smith,  Dr.  Southwood,  4,  6,  25-6, 
151 

Smithfield  Market,  416 

Society  for  Establishing  Public  Baths 
and  Washhouses,  126 

Society  for  Improving  the  Condition 
of  the  Working  Classes,  70 

Soho,  391 

Southwark,  17,  98,  111,  120,  128, 131, 
135-6;  parish  of  St.  George-the- 
Martyr  described,  142-52 ;  167, 189, 
214-5,  222,  224,  228,  230,  267,  279, 
284,  305-6,  334,  347,  354,  364,  369, 
374,  375,  393,  400,  424 


Southwark  Water  Company,  21,  73, 

192 
Spitalfields,  28,  161,  245-6,  253 
Stanley,  Lyulph,  295 
Stepney,  401,  424-5,  430 
Strand,  97,  100,  110,  112-3,  115,  117, 

123,  128,  133,  140,  176,  212,  223-4, 

259,  288-90,  347,  352,  364,  392 
Street  improvements,  29, 205-6, 413-4 
Sutherland,  Dr.,  75 
Sweating,  Select  Committee  on,  337, 

370-2 


Tenement  Houses,  313-6,  353-6, 
358,  375,  422-5,  428-31.  See  also 
"  Overcrowding  " 

Thames,  the,  sewers  discharged  into, 
15-6,  21 ;  source  of  water  supply, 
21-2  ;  the  Lancet's  description,  77 ; 
a  Medical  Officer's  words  in  1858, 
117-8 ;  Embankment  constructed, 
207,  282 ;  Thames  Purification  Act 
passed,  207-8;  scope  of  Conser- 
vancy Board  extended,  208 ;  Port 
of  London  regulations,  239-41, 
283 ;  new  treatment  of  sewage 
adopted,  332 

Torrens,  Mr.,  213 

Towns  Improvement  Act,  1847,  79 

Tramways  Act,  1870,  219 

Tremenheere,  H.  S.,  171 

Typhus,  prevalence  of  in  1838,  4 ;  in 
1847,  48;  in  the  "City"  in  the 
fifties,  58,  112,  147 


Vaccination  Act  of  1836,  208;  of 
1871,  237 

Vestries  created,  83-9 ;  inefficiency 
and  inaction,  183-7,  266-73,  301-8, 
321-2,  398-9 ;  abolition,  398-9 

Victoria  sewer,  76 

Vinen,  Dr.  N.,  400 

Vulliamy,  G.,  229 


Wales,  the  Pbince  op  (now  King 
Edward  VII.),  317,  364 

Wandsworth,  98,  100,  124,  155,  177, 
219,  222,  228,  230,  250,  279,  289, 
402 

Water  supply,  disgraceful  condition 
of,  20-3,  104-7,  160-2,  191-2;  for 
the  "City,"  51-2;  Act  of  Eeform 
passed  in  1852,  71 ;  Act  of  1871, 
233-5;  Act  of  1887,  331;  Boyal 
Commission  of  1892-3,  383-4  ;  Act 
of  1902, 405-6 ;  general  survey,  412-3 


440  SANITARY  EVOLUTION  OF  LONDON 


Waterlow  Park,  414 

Webber  Row  scheme,  364 

Westminster  {see  also  St.  James), 
16,  97-8,  108,  110,  115,  126,  161, 
167,  177,  201,  222,  288,  300,  303, 
346,  375,  377,  430 

Whitechapel,  33,  97,  99,  103-4,  114, 
117,  121,  126-7,  130-1,  153,  160-1, 
166,  168-9,  178,  200-1,  219,  229, 
231,  243,  245-6,  253,  278,  288,  290, 
293-5,  353,  368,  391-2,  399 


Williams,  T.  Marchant,  313-6 

Window  tax,  26 

Woolwich,  98,  332 

Workhouses    and    infirmaries,    209, 

389-90 
Workmen's  trains,  296-7 
Workshop  Regulation  Act,  1867,211-2 


Zymotic  diseases,  42-3,   118,  131, 
163,  170,  260-1 


UKWIN  BROTETERS,  LIMITED,  THE  GRESHAM  PRESS,  WOKING  AND  LONDON. 


DATE  DUE 

MAYO 

9  2005  - 

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